Guest Poster at SBC Voices Shares Concerns About Extreme ‘Church Discipline’

"Leeman and those who advocate a return to some form of 19th Century Baptist disciplinary structure do not want to see church members abused.  That is clear.  But I believe their recommendations, if followed, make it almost a given that abuse will occur."

Church Authority and Church Discipline (SBC Voices)

http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/view-image.php?image=4031&picture=holy-bibleHoly Bible

An interesting discussion has been taking place over at SBC Voices under a guest post entitled Church Authority and Church Discipline.  SBC Voices is a blog that discusses issues of concern to Southern Baptists.  Dave Miller serves as editor; however, Dr. Tony Kummer owns and runs the blog. There are 15 contributors who cover a variety of topics, and on occasion they feature articles written by individuals outside their group. 

An anonymous poster, who is a friend of Dave Miller, recently shared his concerns in the Church Authority and Church Discipline post.  Dee and I are fairly certain we know the identity of the post's author, who is squarely in the Calvinist camp.  This individual has been following our blog for quite some time and has become alarmed by how church authority and discipline are being misused in Christendom.  No doubt some of the stories we have featured (Todd Wilhelm/UCCD and Karen Hinkley/TVC) have made an impact.  As we head toward our 7th year of blogging, it is interesting to go back and read our initial post Who Hijacked My Church?, in which we shared our concerns about church discipline.  Don't get us wrong, we believe in church discipline; however, we have first-hand knowledge of cases where church discipline has been misapplied and used solely as a control mechanism. 

While we hope you will go over and read the entire post at SBC Voices, we are including two screen shots of paragraphs that definitely got our attention.

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http://sbcvoices.com/church-authority-and-church-discipline-anonymous/

AND

http://sbcvoices.com/church-authority-and-church-discipline-anonymous/

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As I write this post, the SBC Voices post has around 160 comments.  There has been a lively discussion, which we hope will continue over there as well as here at TWW.  Jonathan Leeman posted a comment responding to the guest poster's concerns, and Dee has chimed in with several comments (here is just one of them). 

Dee Parsons says

August 14, 2015 at 9:43 am

Anonymous and Jonathan Leeman

There is another issue which is rarely discussed and that has to do with a person who can no longer be a member of a particular church due to an unresolvable conflict in philosophy.

As Jonathan knows, a man decided to leave well known 9 Marks church because he could no longer support that church’s continuous endorsement of books written by an SGM pastor whose churches have been embroiled in a sex abuse scandal. His stand was logical, understandable and biblical.

This man was even asked by that church to be a leader prior to his decision so we are not talking about an ill-informed member. He left and decided to carefully assess other churches before committing to attend a particular church. He has since done so.

But according to 9 Marks rules, he was not allowed to resign from the church until he committed to another *9 Marks approved* church. His name was then added to a care list-a term meaning the person is heading for church discipline. They refused to remove his name for months in spite of repeated requests. The church did not allow room for resignation due to right of conscience. This is disturbing.

In my opinion, which is given quite regularly to the dismay of some, this is an example of how even the experts of church discipline, 9 Marks, can abuse bright, thoughtful and committed Christians.

The Village Church is led by one of the most admired Neo-Calvinist leaders. Even they got it wrong, really wrong. If they couldn’t get it, why should Leeman think that others will not practice abusive church discipline?

I believe that Jonathan is nice guy who truly wants to do his best for the kingdom. Until his tribe is better able to deal with the obvious favoritism shown towards their friends, deal with the fact that even their BFFs get it terribly wrong, and admit their disdain for those who see the problems, then the system is deeply flawed and should be viewed with a jaundiced eye.

The conversation has continued since the post was first published.  I have enjoyed the discussion, and I thought this comment summed things up fairly well (from our perspective):

http://sbcvoices.com/church-authority-and-church-discipline-anonymous/

We are grateful that some are starting to take notice of church authority / church discipline gone awry and hope that it will continue to be discussed.  We believe church discipline has reached a tipping point and pray that some serious changes will be made in the way it is carried out.  We fear that we have seen just the tip of the iceberg regarding abusive church discipline.

We are always interested in hearing from our brothers and sisters in Christ who have been wrongly 'disciplined'.  If you would like to share your experience with us, you can contact us by email – dee@thewartburgwatch.com or deb@thewartburgwatch.com

Comments

Guest Poster at SBC Voices Shares Concerns About Extreme ‘Church Discipline’ — 1,201 Comments

  1. What I can't figure out is why did the author feel he needed to remain anonymous. According to all the Gospel ™ leaders, critiques without names should be ignored and thrown out. I can't show the actual threads, but I know that several times commenters have been chided for wanting to remain anonymous even after the commenter assured others anonymity was necessary because of other affiliations or their own position might be in danger. In other words they needed to protect themselves. I do not remember that being an accepted excuse.

    I am not criticizing the blog author at all but rather noting the inconstant application of the "rules". When I see things like this I wonder "why".

  2. original Mitch wrote:

    I am not criticizing the blog author at all but rather noting the inconstant application of the “rules”. When I see things like this I wonder “why”.

    Consistency is not valued. The one who has the authority makes the rules. I don’t have a problem with blogs having their own rules, because it is the blog owner’s blog. However, inconsistent application of the rules makes the rules not really rules except when the “authority” chooses to apply them in however the “authority” chooses to apply them. This is basically a spirit of lawlessness and damages their credibility. I have found that they break the same rules they apply to everyone else because they can.

    Logic, the Biblical text, hermeneutical methods, discipline rules, whatever. We have to live by their rules, but they do not have to live by their rules. See C.J. Mahaney and Dr. Discipline Dever.

  3. I am seriously confused. Maybe because I don’t live in the US so am used to a completely different church background. If a person wants to leave a church then surely they just leave. They might, or might not let others know; they might or might not be changing churches, or feel they need a break from ‘organised’ worship -no matter, how can a church stop them leaving?

  4. Clarissa wrote:

    I am seriously confused. Maybe because I don’t live in the US so am used to a completely different church background.

    Clarisa you can count on this behavior coming to a church near you sometime soon. Basically these churches require signing a membership document that says you agree to this type of behavior for your own good of course. The whole thing is sorta like a no compete agreement. You can’t just go down the street till they tell you you can. You can’t break up with them but they can break up with you. It is one sick arrangement.

  5. Kevin wrote:

    discipline is so misunderstood in today’s church.

    Who misunderstands? Members? Pastors and elders? Deacons?

    Who is the arbitrator of how to do it correctly?

  6. original Mitch wrote:

    I do not remember that being an accepted excuse.

    As we can see, it is an accepted excuse for whomever the blog owner decides it can be an excuse for. Whomever the blog owner decides must give a name, must give a name or be banned. Right . . . I would think this Anonymous author would see the hypocrisy of the blog he wrote for.

  7. I don’t treat a membership covenant as a red flag. I treat it as an ejector seat. Meaning if I get one of those things put in front of me for me to sign, I immediately eject myself from that church.

    I’m an adult. I neither need nor want church leaders to control where I work, where I live, what car I buy, where I shop, whether or not I marry, whether or not I have kids, how/where those potential kids will be educated, how many Sundays I can miss church, whether or not I attend weekday small groups, outreach/fellowship/retreat events, or whether or not I can stop attending altogether. I can’t imagine I would get along well with any sort of control freak church that imposes covenants to basically control my life.

    I attend conventions (of a non-religious variety) several times throughout any given year. Somehow I don’t think that would sit too well with these authoritarian-types either. I mean, can you imagine? Missing five or six Sundays out of the year to have a little FUN? Blasphemy!

  8. AnonInNC wrote:

    I attend conventions (of a non-religious variety) several times throughout any given year. Somehow I don’t think that would sit too well with these authoritarian-types either. I mean, can you imagine? Missing five or six Sundays out of the year to have a little FUN? Blasphemy!

    Yet their Mega-NeoCal-Celeb pastors can go on speaking engagements, book promo tours, and vacations for as much time as it pleases them. But miss a few of those home group meetings and your salvation is on the line.

  9. The Shepherding movement began in 1974 and ended in 1990 with the declaration of Bob Mumford, on the cover of “Ministries” magazine, that “Discipleship was wrong. I repent. I ask forgiveness.”

    The movement had gained a reputation as exhibiting abusive and controlling behaviour through its emphasis on obedience to one’s personal shepherd.

    In an editorial entitled “Of Shepherds, Fiefs, and the Flock” the editors of Christianity Today wrote concerning the Shepherding movement that, “The temptation to control people is often Christianized by spiritual strong men who present a benign persona.”

    In a 1985 article titled “Disciple Abuse” (Discipleship Journal, Issue Thirty) Gordon MacDonald wrote, “Abusive disciplemaking begins when someone seeks people with the conscious or unconscious aim not of growing or leading them, but of controlling them. Sadly, this can be — and often is — effectively done in the name of discipling. The extremity of this tendency is cultism”

    Fast forward to today and we have the internet savvy 9Marx para-church organization pushing their philosophy of church membership and church discipline mainly through the efforts of Mark Dever and Jonathan Leeman. In my opinion what they are selling is a dressed up version of what the Shepherding movement was selling back in the ’70’s, complete with numerous casualties strewn in their wake.

    I only hope we do not have to wait 16 years for Dever and Leeman to have their “Mumford moment.”

  10. Todd Wilhelm wrote:

    In my opinion what they are selling is a dressed up version of what the Shepherding movement was selling back in the ’70’s, complete with numerous casualties strewn in their wake.

    Absolutely! Looks like enough time has passed so that a younger generation has no knowledge of the abusive shepherding movement. We need to keep educating them about how destructive it was. Perhaps we will post on this movement again soon. In the meantime, here are links to two posts I put together less than a month after we launched TWW, along with excerpts.

    http://thewartburgwatch.com/2009/04/09/the-shepherding-movement-%E2%80%93-reformed-revamped-reee-diculous/

    “If you thought the Shepherding Movement (sometimes called the “Discipleship Movement”) suffered a humiliating demise back in the early 1980s, guess what . . . its B-A-C-K!!! Actually, it never really disappeared – it just went underground for a few decades. Why focus on a movement that gained a horrible reputation because of its controlling and abusive behavior? You may be startled by what we have discovered.

    What happened in the Shepherding Movement is one of the most disturbing chapters in recent church history, and its effects are still being felt today. For those of you who don’t know anything about this movement, let’s take a look back at a bygone era…”

    http://thewartburgwatch.com/2009/04/14/the-shepherding-movement-reformed-revamped-reee-diculous%C2%A0-part-two-%C2%A0/

    “The Shepherding (Discipling) Movement, which had disastrous effects on charismatic Christians in the 1970s and early 1980s, is now REFORMED and REVAMPED. Incredibly, some Calvinistic (Reformed) groups have latched onto shepherding as a method of control, which begs the question, “Is God truly sovereign if shepherding is the method churches use to control their flocks?”

  11. AnonInNC wrote:

    I don’t treat a membership covenant as a red flag. I treat it as an ejector seat. Meaning if I get one of those things put in front of me for me to sign, I immediately eject myself from that church.

    If more Christians would take a stand against membership covenants, this problem would be solved.

  12. Abusers will find a way to have victims to abuse, and will also find a way to keep their victims within “reach”. To my mind, a pastor who has a church covenant that allows for the kind of discipline that has been documented on this blog is an abuser waiting for an opportunity to abuse, all while wearing a mantle of false righteousness. In other words a (hypocritical) Pharisee of the worst sort. And we all know the names of some of them, because they are proud of their “covenant”.

  13. I was especially intrigued with Leeman’s use of “human mediated authority”

    Leeman:”So at this point, we have a choice: either we get rid of all mediated human authority, or we learn to use authority wisely and biblically in those places where God has given it. You can guess that I think the latter course is the better option.”

    Note how he frames church authority in the entire comment and pay attention to such as this:

    Leeman:”Third, you are concerned that my prescriptions will lead to possible abuses. In some sense, ironically, I think you’re right. In fact, I think the gift of authority always runs the risk of abuse. I think God’s gift of authority to parents runs the risk of abuse. So with his gift of authority to governments. So with his gift of authority to husbands. And so, finally, with his gift of authority to chruches. Authority always can be abused. That’s why we must be sooo careful with it, particularly as Christians.”

    Basically he is taking supposed spiritual relationships and mapping them to the “Gentile” system Jesus warned us about. He wants both so these are inbred power relationships. He uses clever words like “mediate” which are red flags to me as I was taught there was NO mediator between me and Christ. Leeman is using Christianese to convince folks this is the way it should be so he has power. He is actually teaching the opposite of Jesus Christ.

    And, ironically, Leeman is also promoting the idea of corrupt priests that Jesus Christ and the OT railed against. He says abuses are not supposed to happen in these “mediated” relationships, but oh, sadly they do. Augustine was the same. He wanted to wipe out the Donatists because they were refusing to take communion from corrupt priests. The idea is that there are not supposed to be corrupt leaders but you have to have authorities over you in the Body so this is a danger we have to deal with. Nope. The authority in the Body is Jesus Christ. Shouldn’t the goal be mature Christians in the Body? Not perpetual adult children?

    So we are to spend our lives looking for non abusive mediators in the Body of Christ? How silly! How about we mature in Christ, instead? When we do that we don’t really have to worry about abusive “mediators” in the Body of Christ.

    And he does the usual insulting positioning of bringing up authority over children in one sentence and mentions authority over wives in the next. Again, women are in the children category. They will always need a mediator between them and Christ. At least the male children get to grow up.

    So, Leeman is teaching the exact opposite of what Jesus Christ taught concerning the Gentile system. However, the way he gets around this is to interpret Jesus through his own Paul filter. Instead of the other way around. An especially insidious doctrine that serves to elevate Leeman and other men who need power over others.

    This is no fad. This is ingrained thinking that will take a road to Damascus event to change hearts. In the meantime, I think it best to warn folks to get out of these churches. You cannot mature in Christ there. Your “leaders” need for you to stay immature with a “mediator”. This is not a simple matter of differences in the degree of their pet issue, “church discipline”. This is misrepresenting Jesus Christ and most of what He was about.

    NEVER forget that added “s” Mohler was adament about in the BFM2000. We are not the Priesthood of believer. There was a reason for the “s”. And it is becoming clearer every day. You cannot stand alone as a believer no matter what is going on around you. You MUST be under the authority of their interpretation of scripture and ultimately, their authority.

    In 1 Corin 5, about the only example of we have of “church discipline”, the ENTIRE church was involved. That is a problem for them. They all want to be Paul in the scenerio. Even Paul could only persuade and beg. He did not have them swear allegiance to his rule.

  14. Clarissa wrote:

    If a person wants to leave a church then surely they just leave. They might, or might not let others know; they might or might not be changing churches, or feel they need a break from ‘organised’ worship -no matter, how can a church stop them leaving?

    First of all, in a 9 Marx church, they would know. You are required to be involved in certain membership activities like care groups or whatever. In larger 9 Marx churches like the Village this becomes a problem when you “join”. They track you.

    So if you want to just leave, they believe they have responsibility for your soul (keys to the kingdom) so if they do not give you permission to leave…yes, you have to discuss it with them…whoever your “leader” is….then they have the right to contact area churches about you being in “discipline”. They have the right to basically smear your reputation with your job and area churches. They have the right to tell the remaining congregants you are in church discipline (but not your side of the story) and you can be shunned, etc, by your “Christian” friends at church.

    BAsically it is an attempt to ruin your reputation/credibility because you did not obey them.

  15. Clarissa wrote:

    how can a church stop them leaving?

    Well, they can’t, not on the surface. So in one way, it is merely ridiculous for them to spend valuable time/energy in inane legalisms.

    But when the “disciplining” process continues with an oft-included shunning of one sort or another, the friends you made at the church treat you as a non-person: ignoring you at the grocery store, not returning calls/emails, no more invitations to gatherings, losing shared childcare and car-sharing, etc.

    Which turns it from ridiculous to unconscionable.

  16. @ Patrice:
    Also what Lydia said lol (Hadn’t read that far)

    BTW, Lydia, those guys in the comments at linked post were slavering. Oy

  17. Patrice wrote:

    But when the “disciplining” process continues with an oft-included shunning of one sort or another,

    And often include intimidation and threats.

  18. Dee said: I believe that Jonathan is nice guy who truly wants to do his best for the kingdom.

    Dee, I choose to think you’ve inadvertently perpetuated an error in thought. I contacted electronically both Leeman and Dever to articulate what 9 marks church discipline looked like in my case (isolation, false and baseless accusations, partiality, berating, slander of my own character to the families of children I had taught, and brothers and sisters I had loved to serve for many years. Obviously, the icing on the cake was publicly denouncing my character so that I would remain isolated and find my job search even more difficult.) I received no response from either, although I made it clear I hoped to.

    Have you told Karen Hinkley that Matt Chandler is basically a nice guy? I think you believe that because Leeman hasn’t been personally linked to a case of abusive discipline (yet) that his hands are clean. To author the rules by which others can do violence, to defend those rules even though you are aware that they are used as a weapon of abuse, and to ignore a voice of one who has suffered abuse based on your writings is cowardly and indefensible. Leeman is a coward. A theologically bankrupt coward.

  19. I don’t know Mr Leeman, and I admit I haven’t read the details of what checks and balances he proposes to support being “sooo careful with” an ecclesiastical authority. So I apologise in advance if I’m about to repeat what he has already written.

    Nick Bulbeck’s fool-proof guide to submitting to church leaders without being trampled on:

    Treat them as ROLE-MODELS, not GURUS.

    By which I mean, obviously, follow their example before you follow their instructions.

     To whom, and under what circumstances, do they submit themselves?
     How do they do this – complainingly, or willingly?
     Can they be called to account by someone they did not appoint themselves?
     Do they recognise, for instance, the authority of the rest of the church in their city – not just their own para-church denomination?
     Do they acknowledge that God has planted them in that town and therefore, by His sovereign will, they are planted alongside all those other Christians (leaders or otherwise) whether they like it or not?
     How do they go about demonstrating submission when they don’t want to, to people with whom they disagree and to whom they don’t want to submit?

    The answers to these, and other questions that you could all come up with for yourselves, will create an overall picture of what the leaders really believe about submitting to authority. So when you do follow their instructions, do it according to their example. If they are humble and teachable, and are looking constantly to build others up and maximise others’ gifts, then yes: submit to them. If they are unteachable, and always have an excuse as to why they don’t have to submit, then no: don’t submit to them.

    This is no frivolous, tit-for-tat malicious compliance either. No office in Jesus’ Church is given for the purpose of ruling over others: on the very first occasion Jesus is ever recorded as teaching on hierarchical authority, he banned it. Rather, those in positions of authority only have authority to set an example for others to follow, and to build others up rather than themselves. If they teach what they won’t do, they violate the terms of their roles and step out from under Jesus’ authority; it is no longer possible to imitate them as they imitate Christ, and they should not be imitated.

    Of course, all this is quite apart from your own responsibility to search the Biblescriptures for yourself…

  20. Gram3 wrote:

    original Mitch wrote:

    I am not criticizing the blog author at all but rather noting the inconstant application of the “rules”. When I see things like this I wonder “why”.

    Consistency is not valued. The one who has the authority makes the rules. I don’t have a problem with blogs having their own rules, because it is the blog owner’s blog. However, inconsistent application of the rules makes the rules not really rules except when the “authority” chooses to apply them in however the “authority” chooses to apply them. This is basically a spirit of lawlessness and damages their credibility. I have found that they break the same rules they apply to everyone else because they can.

    Logic, the Biblical text, hermeneutical methods, discipline rules, whatever. We have to live by their rules, but they do not have to live by their rules. See C.J. Mahaney and Dr. Discipline Dever.

    I don’t necessarily think they’re breaking any rules here or being inconsistent. Unless Denny Burk is the writer here (which I doubt) I don’t know of any of the other well-known bloggers who require a full name in comments. From my perspective, I think there is a difference in anonymity within the church versus anonymity online. Almost none of us are using our real names here at TWW, for example. But within the local church, I could see the difficulty of anonymous letters and such, as leaders who receive such letters can’t usually really address the situation with the people involved. Thus there may be leaders who discourage anonymous letters and such. I can’t judge their motives for this but I doubt in many cases that it is just a control and authority issue. Often it is a ministry issue. Not being able to be reconciled with the one offended because of anonymity is difficult. My guess is that leaders who encourage others to not be anonymous are most likely talking about life in the church rather than online life.

  21. I thought the discussion at Voices was excellent (with the exception of an unfortunate exchange between Tarheel and Lydia). People are thinking. Most of those at Voices are pastors. Many are Reformed-leaning.

    I agree with the anonymous OP. The issue of discipline has gone beyond Scripture in the ways he describes and I believe the interpretation of the keys is off base. I do believe that when churches get larger (more than 200 or so) the ability to minister personally gets lost in the maintenance of the organization. So often believers are getting called on the carpet in church discipline for their sins real or imagined but this is the first real contact they’ve had with the lead pastors. This should not be. If the only time you’re going to relate to the pastors is when you get called to the principal’s office, that is not healthy.

  22. Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    I don’t know Mr Leeman, and I admit I haven’t read the details of what checks and balances he proposes to support being “sooo careful with” an ecclesiastical authority. So I apologise in advance if I’m about to repeat what he has already written.

    Nick Bulbeck’s fool-proof guide to submitting to church leaders without being trampled on:

    Treat them as ROLE-MODELS, not GURUS.

    By which I mean, obviously, follow their example before you follow their instructions.

     To whom, and under what circumstances, do they submit themselves?
     How do they do this – complainingly, or willingly?
     Can they be called to account by someone they did not appoint themselves?
     Do they recognise, for instance, the authority of the rest of the church in their city – not just their own para-church denomination?
     Do they acknowledge that God has planted them in that town and therefore, by His sovereign will, they are planted alongside all those other Christians (leaders or otherwise) whether they like it or not?
     How do they go about demonstrating submission when they don’t want to, to people with whom they disagree and to whom they don’t want to submit?

    The answers to these, and other questions that you could all come up with for yourselves, will create an overall picture of what the leaders really believe about submitting to authority. So when you do follow their instructions, do it according to their example. If they are humble and teachable, and are looking constantly to build others up and maximise others’ gifts, then yes: submit to them. If they are unteachable, and always have an excuse as to why they don’t have to submit, then no: don’t submit to them.

    This is no frivolous, tit-for-tat malicious compliance either. No office in Jesus’ Church is given for the purpose of ruling over others: on the very first occasion Jesus is ever recorded as teaching on hierarchical authority, he banned it. Rather, those in positions of authority only have authority to set an example for others to follow, and to build others up rather than themselves. If they teach what they won’t do, they violate the terms of their roles and step out from under Jesus’ authority; it is no longer possible to imitate them as they imitate Christ, and they should not be imitated.

    Of course, all this is quite apart from your own responsibility to search the Biblescriptures for yourself…

    This is an incredible post. Every YRR pastor needs to read and heed this.

  23. Well said, Nick. This can’t be said often enough.

    The Deebs should put this on a “resources” page, together with their advice on “membership covenants”.

  24. js wrote:

    I do believe that when churches get larger (more than 200 or so) the ability to minister personally gets lost in the maintenance of the organisation 🙂 . So often believers are getting called on the carpet in church discipline for their sins real or imagined 🙂 but this is the first real contact they’ve had with the lead pastors 🙂 .

    I counted at least three really good points in that paragraph.

  25. Lydia wrote:

    interpret Jesus through his own Paul filter. Instead of the other way around

    New Calvinists put way too much emphasis on selected Pauline passages interpreted through a reformed grid (Romans 9, Ephesians 1, etc.)… at the expense of missing the teachings of Jesus in the Gospels. If you read Paul first, you might read Jesus wrong. But if read Jesus first, the writings of Paul come into perspective. The whole of Scripture refutes the underlying precepts of Calvinism.

  26. @ Janet Varin:
    Janet, Miller says in comments there he believes Leeman/9 Marx have “good intentions”. That is a very typical misdirection.

    Their ” intentions” don’t matter a bit and are a blackhole. The only things that matter are words/teaching and actions/patterns of behaviour. I can say my intentions are always good and behave speak the opposite of that declaration. What then?

    .their entire system of church discipline is based on human authority in the Body. If they can get you to agree with that premise then it becomes about “intentions” and assuring people they are good guys with lapses in judgement. Sounds benigh until we fosus on the cruelty done to their victims. In effect, they lack character and wisdom.

    They would love for our focus to be on good intentions so we do not analyze the teaching or behavior.

  27. @ lydia:
    I laughed at how many ways they found to go around your points. That set of exchanges would make excellent example material for a school lesson.

    If they were actually interested in examining this issue, they’d take those parts of your comments with which they agreed and affirmed them, then presented argument on other points. And they would have been humble enough to ask for clarity because it obviously they didn’t understand some of what you wrote.

    Their disagreements were emotionally based, and considering their BS about women being too emotional…sheeeeshhh. At one point, they even managed a pack-attack, thus my use of “slavering” like dripping jaws w00t

    This is basic, you know? And they are not uneducated.

    They took Dee’s comments because she was very careful with her vocab, was succinct, and also because she has an influential blog that repeatedly proves itself correct. They had to have mirelle’s comments put into their faces several times (including by anonymous author) before they quit mashing her. And after that, they simply ignored her.

    And they had the gall to nearly eject Serving Kids in Japan because they couldn’t take the criticism, so they went sideways about “real names”. But the OP author was anonymous!

    These guys act as nasty as any other human across the globe who have shabby intellectual lives and even shabbier hearts. Not by reason of their created selves, either–they’ve chosen to go that way.

    I would never let such-like persons anywhere near my spiritual life. And the topic under discussion was how/when to kick others out of their circles! I don’t remember who suggested that perhaps many of the Dones are administering their own form of discipline but that is it, precisely.

    Pffft.

  28. Bill M wrote:

    I noticed the moderator’s motto was “root, root, root for the home team”

    Did the moderator wear a miniskirt and swing pompoms?

  29. Darlene wrote:

    Yet their Mega-NeoCal-Celeb pastors can go on speaking engagements, book promo tours, and vacations for as much time as it pleases them. But miss a few of those home group meetings and your salvation is on the line.

    RANK. HATH. ITS. PRIVILEGES.

  30. Patrice wrote:

    the friends you made at the church treat you as a non-person: ignoring you at the grocery store, not returning calls/emails, no more invitations to gatherings, losing shared childcare and car-sharing, etc.

    Shunning and excommunication are archaic religious practices that have no part in the free church of Jesus Christ. Such extreme treatment of one Christian to another should not be practiced by the Body of Christ … as Patrice notes, it is “ridiculous to unconscionable.”

    Certainly, some level of discipline can be a healthy exercise in church, when done with love and in the Spirit of God … but to employ this level of abuse (yes, it is abuse) is contrary to Christian character. Shunning can be a painful experience in small communities (where church, work, and school collide) as the shunned may have no significant social contact with anyone other than those in church and community. In such cases, restoration (if that is really necessary) is close to impossible. Praise God – if you stumble and fall, you can go directly to God in humility, prayer and repentance … He will forgive you, pick you up and put you back on course … no intervention by Calvin necessary.

    The Devers’ model for church membership and discipline is being too easily adopted in New Calvinist ranks … it was not predestined to work. Folks beware of membership covenants and plurality of elders church governance. If you sign the first, the latter will own your soul. If you allow these folks to diminish Biblical teachings on soul competency and priesthood of the individual believer, you open a pathway for unhealthy authoritarian control over your Christian experience.

  31. @ original Mitch:

    The author who is anonymous has supported anonymity for critics since the beginning. I wish I could let you know how important it is that anonymous is supporting some of our views on church discipline. I know that Lydia disagrees with us on this one but that’s OK. All points of view should have the loyal opposition. It keeps us all honest.

    I know that our thoughts are being taken more seriously by some in that camp now. The Village Church debacle was key in that matter.

    Alos, the fact that SBC Voices even printed this post is a bit unexpected and quite welcome. As I told another reader, do not worry. I will continue to fight the membership.discipline guidelines as preached and practiced by 9 Marks. In fact, I have another good story about some ridiculous rules they have. I will get to it in another week.

  32. Bill M wrote:

    root, root, root for the home team”

    For it’s one, two , three strikes your out….

    If we have many more stories like TVC (and I have one or two that I am working on to verify) they will strike out in the court of public opinion.

  33. Patrice wrote:

    And they had the gall to nearly eject Serving Kids in Japan because they couldn’t take the criticism, so they went sideways about “real names”. But the OP author was anonymous!

    Yes, this turned me off completely. Would not trust these men at all. They promote an anonymous author, but reject anyone else who doesn’t use their own name, or who doesn’t fit their faith paradeim. They came across like religious elitists. Why would anyone want to listen to what they have to say about their own perceived authority?

    Patrice wrote:

    I would never let such-like persons anywhere near my spiritual life. And the topic under discussion was how/when to kick others out of their circles! I don’t remember who suggested that perhaps many of the Dones are administering their own form of discipline but that is it, precisely.

    Precisely, indeed! The elitists don’t believe a member can withdraw themselves from the corrupt systems the members (many nkw dones) find themselves part of. To me, it looks like elite leaders throwing a hissy fit because members of the body won’t bow down to the elitist leaders’ systems.

    You nailed their “emotional” issue has well.

  34. Clarissa wrote:

    , how can a church stop them leaving?

    This is a growing movement within the reformed movement in particular. They actually have you sign a membership contract (the call it covenant) which says you cannot leave if you are being disciplined. Also, if you leave, you must go to an approve church or they will refuse to remove you from the church and may even put you in discipline.

    We have written extensively on this subject and, with the help from a reader of two, we are planning an explanation and resource page. In the meantime, here is one (out of many stories to get you going. It is about Todd Wilhelm, our official TWW hero.

    http://thewartburgwatch.com/2013/10/30/my-my-dubai-9-marks-played-hardball-while-lifeway-david-platt-stretched-the-truth/

  35. js wrote:

    From my perspective, I think there is a difference in anonymity within the church versus anonymity online. Almost none of us are using our real names here at TWW, for example. But within the local church, I could see the difficulty of anonymous letters and such, as leaders who receive such letters can’t usually really address the situation with the people involved.

    We aren’t talking about in a local church, though. We are specifically talking about on line at SBC Voices.

  36. Bridget wrote:

    Who is the arbitrator of how to do it correctly?

    This is the best question of the year! Everyone needs to think about this. When 9 Marks themselves, who claim to know how to do it, screw up royally, then we have a problem. My guess is that very few know how to do it correctly.

    The other thing to note: why is church discipline usually aimed at the people in the congregation? I think their should be pastors and elders who are getting disciplined as well. I want to see one of those pastor disciplined for *causing disunity.* What a day for blogger that would be!

  37. dee wrote:

    I know that Lydia disagrees with us on this one but that’s OK. All points of view should have the loyal opposition. It keeps us all honest.

    You know how rare that is!!! Yes, I think anonymous wants to save 9 Marx. I disagree with the premise of 9 Marx elder rule which is imperative for their system to function. I strenuously disagree with the concept of human “mediators” in the Body. Where is the Holy Spirit and encouraging new believers to seek guidance? You cannot spiritually mature in that system. It is like planning to live with mom and dad until they die.

    OTOH, the fact they are even discussing degrees of “church discipline” on an SBC Reformed pastor blog is a step in the right direction. :o)

  38. Darlene wrote:

    But miss a few of those home group meetings and your salvation is on the line.

    One day, I need to share with you all how my home group functions. We have been together for 14 years. We go to different churches. We are all different in personality. But we have been there for each other through cancer and death, sickness, problems with kids, weddings and funerals, in good times and thought times.

    It is amazing that we hang in there and that is due to a committed leader and his hospitable wife who say-“Get over here” twice a month. We don’t review anyone’s sermons. We read the Bible and a very occasional book.

    Our individual theology is all over the map. But, we are there for each other.

    That is one of the reasons I am a fan of starting your own Bible study. It can work.

  39. Todd Wilhelm wrote:

    “The temptation to control people is often Christianized by spiritual strong men who present a benign persona

    You do know that it is your story that is the monkey on 9 Marks back, don’t you? Whenever Leeman shows up, I show up and remind him. Now, add the TVC situation, and even some of the faithful are starting to raise some questions.

    I know a dear woman who takes in stray dogs. She always has about 7 of them. One day, a dog which had the sweetest disposition for 3 years, suddenly attacked and killed a pug dog in the group. The pug was benign and didn’t defend itself.

    There are lost os people in leadership like that. They wait, build a following and then attack and control. And everybody keeps saying “But he is such a nice guy.”

  40. Lydia wrote:

    I think you’re right. In fact, I think the gift of authority always runs the risk of abuse. I

    This has raised a question for me. Many have commented that discipline is good and sometimes abuse occurs. When I see the aftermath of abuse, the person is changed developing little respect for the church, having mental health issues, etc.In Karen’s case, no one but two pastors came to her to ask for forgiveness.

    The abused person is the left out in the cold. I was shocked how few people from TVC every tried to help out Karen in the aftermath.

    When abuse occurs, the abused person is quickly forgotten, and I think this is on purpose. There are lifelong ramifications for abusing someone. I think it would be far better to put a hold on discipline and start really loving the people in the church. Right now, we are playing games.

  41. Lydia wrote:

    BAsically it is an attempt to ruin your reputation/credibility because you did not obey them.

    That is exactly what it is. If you don’t obey their teaching, you must be a problem. In my situation, the elders in the meeting totally changed what occurred. Guess who was believed? Only later because of other discoveries did someone who had been told the elder version come to me and ask what happened. Turns out I’m not the only one targeted. Surprise!

  42. @ Janet Varin:
    Could you check your email? I responded to this because I do not want you to think i have gone off the rails. This was a rare opportunity to say something which would be read by people my words seldom reach.

    Do not worry. As you will see-I am still a dog when it comes to the abuse of people. never forget that Todd Wilhelm is my hero!

  43. js wrote:

    Often it is a ministry issue. Not being able to be reconciled with the one offended because of anonymity is difficult.

    There are some that want to know the name to apply the screws of church discipline as well. Why do you think people want to be anonymous when they write their pastor? It is obvious that they do not trust his response.

    Today, most pastors are talking heads who do the Sunday sermon and take off to conferences, sabbaticals, book writing tours and speaking in each others churches. The do not develop relationships with most of the people who come to their church.

    So, in my opinion, if a pastor is getting anonymous notes, it is most likely because he is not involved in such a way that his people can trust him.

  44. lydia wrote:

    They would love for our focus to be on good intentions so we do not analyze the teaching or behavior.

    Just because I think someone might have good intentions does not mean I think they should be doing what they are doing.

    Let’s take a surgeon who want to be the best surgeon he can be. However, he has terrible outcomes for his patients. He is just a bad surgeon who really wants to be a good surgeon. He needs to be removed from his position. I don;t think he is a bad guy at heart but he just doesn’t get it and he is harming people.

  45. @ js:
    I was addressing their lack of consistency across the board. If an elder board receives an anonymous communication that contains substantive material, then they should address the substance of the communication. But they use the anonymity dodge whereby they do not have to address the substance while never addressing the fact of the way they treat people who make their disagreements or inconvenient facts known. That is hypocrisy and self-protection by the leaders.

    In the case at Voices, we have an anonymous poster who makes some substantive points about the 9Marks-style culture of church discipline. How many of the pastoral commenters there address whether Leeman’s underlying exegesis of the texts is even valid? The moderator pretends not to know much about 9Marks. That is laughable in view of how much they promote themselves. A commenter names names and asks questions. They slam the commenter and Miller threatens to shut down the thread. How petty and fragile can you get? They will let people say things about Lydia, but no one dare mention the names of the people who have brought this plague upon us. It is hypocrisy.

    You and I have gone around the block on other issues where they are deliberately inconsistent in order to promote their agenda. I do not think that is what Jesus intended for his church to do.

  46. Gram3 wrote:

    later because of other discoveries did someone who had been told the elder version come to me and ask what happened.

    In most cases, like what happened in my church, elders have a family (church member) to meeting tell everyone it is best not to talk with “those who are in disagreement with them” because it might bring disunity or confusion to the listener. If (like me) you have had enough of this type of listening by ‘elders’ and immediately go talk to the agrieved parties, you might hear a completely different story. You might also be labeled a trouble maker because you didn’t obey/submit to the elders wishes. If you are a woman, you are a double trouble maker 😉

  47. js wrote:

    I thought the discussion at Voices was excellent (with the exception of an unfortunate exchange between Tarheel and Lydia). People are thinking. Most of those at Voices are pastors. Many are Reformed-leaning.

    I don’t think it was an excellent discussion at all, and especially one among pastors whose churches are affected by this doctrinal aberration. When Lydia brings a challenge, they attack her instead of their fellow ELDERS who committed the sin against an innocent woman in the name of the Lord. That is the sin that prompted the OP, but none of these “leaders” or “pastors” dare talk about it or, heaven forbid, name the names of those who have propagated this false teaching or who have sinned so egregiously in applying it. And that after having seen Driscoll and Mahaney. It is telling that these same “leaders” were as blind about those guys as they are about Chandler and 9Marks.

  48. @ dee:
    I get that but if he insists his way is textbook and he is chief surgeon in a teaching hospital would intentions matter? Why say he has good or bad intentions? We don’t know either way. We don’t know if Dever genuinely wants to help people or if he wants to control them.

    I just think going that route has proven to be historically dangerous and keeps people from analyzing words/behaviors that are destructive. Just another way to approach this…

    But as I have been told enough, I am a mean hateful Jezebel. :o)

  49. dee wrote:

    I know that our thoughts are being taken more seriously by some in that camp now. The Village Church debacle was key in that matter.

    I agree that it is amazing that they posted anything that reflects doubt about clerical authority. My reservation in calmer moments is that they do not get the underlying rot that causes this to happen. Their responses to Lydia and SKIJ show that they do not want to even go there because it tarnishes the images of their heroes and diminishes their importance in the church. I’m wondering if you have seen any hopeful signs that either the anonymous poster or any of the commenters are re-thinking their core theological errors?

  50. I am not a SBCer so I do not feel I should comment on the “Voice”. However, I do feel I can comment here. Also, I cam from a GARBC background (General Association of Regular Baptist Churches) which plays its own “righteous/exclusion games”. In fact, SBC was not “pure enough for them”, so GARBC would not associate with SBC (i.e. they would shun them!)) So, I think I do have a perspective on this..

    First, I agree the “Voice” blog is a big step for the SBC to start talking about the disaster that is overtaking them…. But, I can NOT get my hands/mind around the concept that Calvanista’s are advocating the concept/need/requirement of a “mediator”, What? They need to articulate this scripturally, and define, clearly, how it is any different than a Roman Catholic Priest??? Given they control the “keys”, they are to a outside observer, NO DIFFERENT than a Roman Catholic Priest… The RC Priest controls the RC sacraments, these Calvanista’s leaders are doing the same thing???
    Second, the potential of abuse should be more important than the importance of discipline… it is no different in the US judicial system… we are innocent until proven guilty… even our system abuses people, but the guilty until proven innocent REALLY abuses people….
    Third, the very fact that the OP does not use his/her name indicates that there is something really fishy going on … and proves my point number “2”

  51. dee wrote:

    I want to see one of those pastor disciplined for *causing disunity.* What a day for blogger that would be!

    That is a huge double standard that they enforce. If a pewpeon raises a question, said pewpeon is being divisive, even if the issue is raised in private. If, however, an ambitious young YRR takes over an existing church and many of its members leave because of the novel doctrines he is preaching, he is *not* being divisive but a faithful expositor. He can be divisive for years, dividing families and people from their friends, but a pewpeon cannot raise a question. It is madness and worldly.

  52. Gram3 wrote:

    js wrote:

    I thought the discussion at Voices was excellent (with the exception of an unfortunate exchange between Tarheel and Lydia). People are thinking. Most of those at Voices are pastors. Many are Reformed-leaning.

    I don’t think it was an excellent discussion at all, and especially one among pastors whose churches are affected by this doctrinal aberration. When Lydia brings a challenge, they attack her instead of their fellow ELDERS who committed the sin against an innocent woman in the name of the Lord. That is the sin that prompted the OP, but none of these “leaders” or “pastors” dare talk about it or, heaven forbid, name the names of those who have propagated this false teaching or who have sinned so egregiously in applying it. And that after having seen Driscoll and Mahaney. It is telling that these same “leaders” were as blind about those guys as they are about Chandler and 9Marks.

    Once again, we disagree, lol. I am grateful these things are being talked about on Voices.

  53. Todd Wilhelm wrote:

    The Shepherding movement began in 1974 and ended in 1990 with the declaration of Bob Mumford, on the cover of “Ministries” magazine, that “Discipleship was wrong. I repent. I ask forgiveness.”

    There may be some disagreement abut the Shepherding Movement’s beginning and ending dates; some place the ending when Derek Prince departed the movement in the mid-1980’s. I first encountered the principles and practices of the Shepherding Movement in, of all places, an Episcopal church. This was several years following Dr. Prince’s departure; it wasn’t until a bit later that I realized what I encountered was Shepherding Movement behavior.

    Even though the Shepherding Movement may have formally ended, there’s no question its basic principles and practices are alive and well today, living on in some parts of the neo-Calvinist movement and other parts of the church.

  54. dee wrote:

    In Karen’s case, no one but two pastors came to her to ask for forgiveness.

    You make a great point, Dee. That no members have apologized to Karen for their own actions and complicity, shows a huge weakness of top-down leadership. Church hierarchy promotes social spiritual passivity for all but those on the top. Some leaders even consider this passivity a sign of spiritual maturity (which is why I despise their free use of the word “sheep” and “obedience”).

    It needn’t be labeled a cult for this to occur, either.

    In production-oriented corporations, it is necessary because most positions involve rote work. But “it should not be so among you…” comes from a passage directly dealing with this.

  55. Gram3 wrote:

    When Lydia brings a challenge, they attack her instead of their fellow ELDERS who committed the sin against an innocent woman in the name of the Lord.

    I spent years trying to say the right words and have the right “tone” with such people before I figured out the game. The game is pure deceit in the name of Christ. But that was also before all the scandlabras became so known online. Now they desperately need to save the systems. My position is one of questioning trustworthiness and wisdom. How can educated “spiritual” leaders get it so wrong for so long?

    Even when I had a large staff I viewed my function as one of being a resource for them to move on to much greater things. It was a joy to witness that. How degrading to people to view them as objects to control. Why?

  56. Perhaps what we need is a bit more Matthew 20 and a bit less Matthew 18.

    Jesus specifically tells his disciples in Matt 20 to not be like the Gentiles who lorded their authority over others. Then Jesus follows up with the definition of what leadership and authority should look like within the church- servanthood.

    Too often discipline is used as a cudgel to keep people in line theologically and prevent holding church leadership accountable to the church they are supposed to serve.

    This emphasis on church discipline is born from hubris and egocenticism in church leadership. Jesus didn’t put Judas I out of fellowship, even though Judas I betrayed Jesus. Jesus didn’t put Peter out of fellowship even though Peter denied Jesus. Using Jesus’ example, we should be more than circumspect if we believe church discipline is in order.

    Furthermore, church discipline should not be used as a license to sin by spreading lies, innuendo, and assassinating the character of the person under discipline.

    Since few churches and church leadership hold themselves to such standards, the body of Christ would be better off if they focussed more on the log in their own eye than the speck in someone else’s.

    I’ll step off my soapbox now.

  57. original Mitch wrote:

    What I can’t figure out is why did the author feel he needed to remain anonymous. According to all the Gospel ™ leaders, critiques without names should be ignored and thrown out. I can’t show the actual threads, but I know that several times commenters have been chided for wanting to remain anonymous even after the commenter assured others anonymity was necessary because of other affiliations or their own position might be in danger. In other words they needed to protect themselves. I do not remember that being an accepted excuse.

    Like so?

    “Dear Matt [Chandler of TVC], Recently, you criticized an anonymous critic. You called him a narcissistic zero.”
    http://thewartburgwatch.com/2010/09/21/an-open-letter-to-matt-chandler-from-a-narcissistic-zero/

  58. lydia wrote:

    I spent years trying to say the right words and have the right “tone” with such people before I figured out the game. The game is pure deceit in the name of Christ

    At which point, Deceivers, Liars, and Sociopaths have THE home-field advantage.

  59. Clarissa wrote:

    how can a church stop them leaving?

    I wonder if these types of churches could hook people into machines, like the human farms in the Matrix movies, if they would go that far. I think they probably would.
    Then we’d need a bunch of Neos, Trinitys, and Morpheuses to set the captives free.

  60. dee wrote:

    js wrote:

    Often it is a ministry issue. Not being able to be reconciled with the one offended because of anonymity is difficult.

    There are some that want to know the name to apply the screws of church discipline as well. Why do you think people want to be anonymous when they write their pastor? It is obvious that they do not trust his response.

    Today, most pastors are talking heads who do the Sunday sermon and take off to conferences, sabbaticals, book writing tours and speaking in each others churches. The do not develop relationships with most of the people who come to their church.

    So, in my opinion, if a pastor is getting anonymous notes, it is most likely because he is not involved in such a way that his people can trust him.

    It definitely cuts both ways. Anonymity can come either from fear or from a desire to inflict harm.

    Do you really think most pastors are taking heads who travel from conference to conference and never engage with people? The people you most often criticize may be in this boat but that is a very, very small minority of pastors. Most pastors I know are flawed but honorable and faithful. The focus on tww is mostly on the abuses that flow from pulpit to the pew but there is certainly a strong tide in the other direction. If someone started a survivors blog for pastors they would get some serious hits. Churches I have been part of have been peaceful but this is but always the case. Many a fine man has been destroyed by people in the pew. This is not a cover for abuse that flies in the other direction but is the way I see the reality on the ground. Anonymity in the local church is often a sign of dysfunction, I think we agree on that. Online anonymity is another issue imo and is usually less significant.

  61. original Mitch wrote:

    You can’t break up with them but they can break up with you. It is one sick arrangement.

    Interesting way of putting it, because some of these same authoritarian churches, denominations, or affiliations scold Christians by telling them not to “date” the church, but be committed to it.

    They use relationship jargon like that, at least in so far as guilting you into staying put, but they sure don’t want you to “break up” (as you put it), or divorcing.

  62. Js wrote:

    Once again, we disagree, lol. I am grateful these things are being talked about on Voices.

    Our fundamental disagreement is that one class of humans is ordained to rule/discipline another class of humans. All who are in Christ are equally indwelt by the Holy Spirit and are priests of the New Covenant. As we learn in Galatians, no class of New Covenant Priests has authority over any other class of New Covenant Priests. You and I disagree on the effect of the Cross and Resurrection. And most likely on what the “plain meaning” of some verses are.

    That is not a real discussion at Voices because not all voices with substantive points are permitted to be heard. If they wanted to learn, they would listen a lot more and pontificate a lot less. But then, they get paid to be the authoritative pontificators, so that’s what they know how to do. Too bad they don’t get the Gospel.

  63. Wow! Dave Miller went after Serving Kids in Japan! SKiJ is one of the most thoughtful commenters on the blogs I read. Is is any wonder some people don’t want to use their name? Dave really doesn’t like anonymity, does he? I kept waiting to him to steal Chandler’s “narcissistic zero” insult. I guess SKiJ has his own spiritual abuse tale to tell now.

    Lydia, hats off to you.

    That whole Voices thread is a perfect example of what you can expect if you disagree with “authority.” I wouldn’t count on any of them to administer discipline correctly.

  64. Todd Wilhelm wrote:

    The Shepherding movement began in 1974 and ended in 1990 with the declaration of Bob Mumford, on the cover of “Ministries” magazine, that “Discipleship was wrong. I repent. I ask forgiveness.”

    The movement had gained a reputation as exhibiting abusive and controlling behaviour through its emphasis on obedience to one’s personal shepherd.

    1974-1990 means it was at its first-flush peak when I got mixed up in that not-a-cult in the Seventies. They called it “Discipling” instead of “Shepherding”, but the control-freak aspect was identical. Everything except SCRIPTURE(TM) and WITNESSING(TM) was forbidden, and what was not forbidden was absolutely compulsory. I wasn’t in too deep (only on the fringes) but even after 40 years the scars are still there.

    One peculiarity of theirs was a quasi-Pentecostal doctrine of a separate “Holy Spirit experience” that completed your “Discipling”. Looking back, it was the same “snapping” experience you find in brainwashing — after all the nonstop indoctrination, you “snap” after which there is only “He Loved Big Brother”.

    Still, Shepherding(TM) is going to remain popular.
    It’s a control freak’s wet dream.

  65. BeenThereDoneThat wrote:

    That whole Voices thread is a perfect example of what you can expect if you disagree with “authority.”

    Fair Game Law invoked against SPs and All Entheta?

  66. AnonInNC wrote:

    I’m an adult. I neither need nor want church leaders to control where I work, where I live, what car I buy, where I shop, whether or not I marry, whether or not I have kids, how/where those potential kids will be educated, how many Sundays I can miss church, whether or not I attend weekday small groups, outreach/fellowship/retreat events, or whether or not I can stop attending altogether. I can’t imagine I would get along well with any sort of control freak church that imposes covenants to basically control my life.

    Amen to that, and preach it!

  67. Daisy wrote:

    Interesting way of putting it, because some of these same authoritarian churches, denominations, or affiliations scold Christians by telling them not to “date” the church, but be committed to it.

    They use relationship jargon like that, at least in so far as guilting you into staying put, but they sure don’t want you to “break up” (as you put it), or divorcing.

    Isn’t this the same dynamic you find in an abusive domestic relationship?

    Where the abuser keeps pressuring the victim to stay “committed to their relationship”?

  68. singleman wrote:

    Even though the Shepherding Movement may have formally ended, there’s no question its basic principles and practices are alive and well today, living on in some parts of the neo-Calvinist movement and other parts of the church.

    That is so true. Combine some Founders who long for Geneva (Dever, Mohler) with Mahaney’s TAG/PDI/SGM continuation of Shepherding, and we get the mess we have today. As I’ve said before, Mahaney proved the concept that Dever and Mohler wanted to emulated and that is the reason for the extraordinarily close and protective relationship, IMO.

  69. Todd Wilhelm wrote:

    “The temptation to control people is often Christianized by spiritual strong men who present a benign persona.”

    “For Satan himself can present himself to appear as an Angel of Light.”
    — some itinerant Rabbi from Nazareth

  70. Bridget wrote:

    js wrote:

    From my perspective, I think there is a difference in anonymity within the church versus anonymity online. Almost none of us are using our real names here at TWW, for example. But within the local church, I could see the difficulty of anonymous letters and such, as leaders who receive such letters can’t usually really address the situation with the people involved.

    We aren’t talking about in a local church, though. We are specifically talking about on line at SBC Voices.

    I understood the criticism to be ” why should the original poster be anonymous when the neo cals discourage anonymity”? I may have misunderstood the criticism. If my understanding of the criticism is valid, then my point was that I have not noted a great deal of criticism of online anonymity (other than Burks policy on full names at his blog). I have heard from time to time from some a general discouraging of anonymous communications in the local church and I mostly agree with this. In other words, I don’t see a lot of neocals decrying online anonymity so I don’t see why it would be a double standard for the op to be anonymous.

  71. Js wrote:

    The focus on tww is mostly on the abuses that flow from pulpit to the pew but there is certainly a strong tide in the other direction. If someone started a survivors blog for pastors they would get some serious hits

    I don’t know about “strong tide” in the other direction, but I will agree that there are troublesome pewpeons. And the discerning pewpeons need to bring some personal correction to bad attitudes among their fellows. If more pewpeons were Biblically literate and were true Bereans who desire to imitate, Christ, there would be a lot less abuse flowing in both directions.

  72. Gram3 wrote:

    Js wrote:

    Once again, we disagree, lol. I am grateful these things are being talked about on Voices.

    Our fundamental disagreement is that one class of humans is ordained to rule/discipline another class of humans. All who are in Christ are equally indwelt by the Holy Spirit and are priests of the New Covenant. As we learn in Galatians, no class of New Covenant Priests has authority over any other class of New Covenant Priests. You and I disagree on the effect of the Cross and Resurrection. And most likely on what the “plain meaning” of some verses are.

    That is not a real discussion at Voices because not all voices with substantive points are permitted to be heard. If they wanted to learn, they would listen a lot more and pontificate a lot less. But then, they get paid to be the authoritative pontificators, so that’s what they know how to do. Too bad they don’t get the Gospel.

    You are leveling the very same accusation at them that so many here accuse the neocals of bringing on all those who disagree with them. Those who disagree don’t get the gospel. Codswallop.

  73. Gram3 wrote:

    That is so true. Combine some Founders who long for Geneva (Dever, Mohler) with Mahaney’s TAG/PDI/SGM continuation of Shepherding, and we get the mess we have today.

    Silly Calvinistas!
    There is room for only ONE Calvin on the throne of Geneva.
    Break out the stilettos and vials of poison and let the Game of Thrones begin.

  74. lydia wrote:

    They would love for our focus to be on good intentions so we do not analyze the teaching or behavior.

    Not trying to go off topic here, but this is what I said several times over on one of the last gender complementarian threads.

    Some gender compes really think gender comp teachings can improve society or marriages, but their good intentions don’t change the fact that their beliefs and practices harm people, they don’t help them. It’s the same principle at work there.

  75. Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

    They called it “Discipling” instead of “Shepherding”

    Yep. It’s sometimes called Discipling/Discipleship Movement as well as Shepherding. And it never went away. Mumford eventually dropped it, but it still lives on in many churches. 9Marks really isn’t very original.

  76. @ Js:
    The double standard is that the OP could be anonymous (it was presumed that he had a valid reason) but SKIJ was attacked for anonymity. They want to have it both ways, and that is because both ways benefit them.

  77. AnonInNC wrote:

    I can’t imagine I would get along well with any sort of control freak church that imposes covenants to basically control my life.

    I can’t imagine you would get along well with ANY sort of control freak.

    Especially one who invokes Divine Right as justification.

    “Nothing’s worse than a monster who thinks he’s right with God.”
    — Captain Mal Reynolds, Free Trader Serenity, Verse Cluster

  78. Patrice wrote:

    And the topic under discussion was how/when to kick others out of their circles! I don’t remember who suggested that perhaps many of the Dones are administering their own form of discipline but that is it, precisely.

    Excellent point. People are choosing to walk away from churches by their own volition, they don’t need to be disciplined out or voted out.

    And one of the many reasons people are voluntarily quitting is precisely due to the sort of attitudes on that SBC Voices thread, and severe church discipline.

  79. Gram3 wrote:

    @ Js:
    The double standard is that the OP could be anonymous (it was presumed that he had a valid reason) but SKIJ was attacked for anonymity. They want to have it both ways, and that is because both ways benefit them.

    “Heads I Win, Tails You Lose, PRAISE GAWD!!!!!”

  80. lydia wrote:

    They would love for our focus to be on good intentions so we do not analyze the teaching or behavior.

    Anyone remember what the road to Hell is paved with?

  81. @ Gram3:
    Your comments make me want to ask the question “who ever holds Dave Miller accountable for his actions in the way he moderates that blog.” Blogs can have whatever rules they want and they can be run however the owner/moderator sees fit. But just look at the the incredible hubris and hypocrisy in how people are moderated on thread in regards to church discipline. They prove the point that’s being made and that is there are people like Miller who see themselves as these High Priests who have no accountability to no one at any time. Miller shows absolute contempt to people who dare to bring up the Calvinization of the SBC – he has decided that they’re idiots and should just shut up so they are deserving of his abuse and contempt. Not only does he personally ridicule and abuse them but he allows the horde to attack. And yet who holds them accountable? No one, because they have the “correct” doctrine and the “correct” opinions.

  82. Js wrote:

    Those who disagree don’t get the gospel. Codswallop.

    If someone denies what Christ accomplished on the Cross and in the Resurrection, they do not get the Gospel. A doctrine which holds that some people who are indwelt by the Holy Spirit are ordained by God to rule over other people who are indwelt by the same Holy Spirit, those people do not understand the Gospel and what Christ accomplished. They are stuck in a framework of “human mediation” as Leeman put it. There is only one Mediator, Christ Jesus, and there is only one Holy Spirit, not a bunch of self-appointed holy spirits who need to tell other people how to be holy.

    Why don’t you try addressing substantive points?

  83. Daisy wrote:

    Patrice wrote:

    And the topic under discussion was how/when to kick others out of their circles! I don’t remember who suggested that perhaps many of the Dones are administering their own form of discipline but that is it, precisely.

    Excellent point. People are choosing to walk away from churches by their own volition, they don’t need to be disciplined out or voted out.

    It’s called “going over the Berlin Wall into the West.”

    Calvin’s Anointed Elect need to add the minefields and machine-gun towers to the Wall.

  84. @ dee:

    The same dynamics happen in work place abuse / work place bullying. The victims get blamed and/or shunned/ignored, the abuser is protected, nobody wants to fix or admit that the work environment is toxic and contributes to or creates the situation.

  85. BeenThereDoneThat wrote:

    Lydia, hats off to you.

    Maybe it would help understand that sbcvoices is the attitude I am surrounded by at ground zero in church after church taken over with deceitful controlling methods. After years of it you cut to the chase. I have no illusions about where this is headed. They can only make a decent living in ” ministry” and the SBC has manufactured thousands of these types. . As more folks tell their stories expect to hear lots if apologies about lapses in judgement. But the underlying control issues won’t change. Just methods.

  86. Gram3 wrote:

    Js wrote:

    The focus on tww is mostly on the abuses that flow from pulpit to the pew but there is certainly a strong tide in the other direction. If someone started a survivors blog for pastors they would get some serious hits

    I don’t know about “strong tide” in the other direction, but I will agree that there are troublesome pewpeons. And the discerning pewpeons need to bring some personal correction to bad attitudes among their fellows. If more pewpeons were Biblically literate and were true Bereans who desire to imitate, Christ, there would be a lot less abuse flowing in both directions.

    Ding, ding, ding! We have agreement! 🙂

  87. BeenThereDoneThat wrote:

    Lydia, hats off to you.

    Maybe it would help understand that sbcvoices is the attitude I am surrounded by at ground zero in church after church taken over with deceitful controlling methods. After years of it you cut to the chase. I have no illusions about where this is headed. They can only make a decent living in ” ministry” and the SBC has manufactured thousands of these types. . As more folks tell their stories expect to hear lots if apologies about lapses in judgement. But the underlying control issues won’t change. Just methods. I am not interested in being controlled nicer. :o)

  88. Jeffrey J Chalmers wrote:

    But, I can NOT get my hands/mind around the concept that Calvanista’s are advocating the concept/need/requirement of a “mediator”, What? They need to articulate this scripturally, and define, clearly, how it is any different than a Roman Catholic Priest??? Given they control the “keys”, they are to a outside observer, NO DIFFERENT than a Roman Catholic Priest… The RC Priest controls the RC sacraments, these Calvanista’s leaders are doing the same thing???

    I’ve noticed this too and it’s so weird.

    Your Protestant guys claim, or used to claim, that the Roman Catholic system was wrong and unbiblical, that people don’t need to go through a priest, but they are making their own church leaders (elders and preachers) into Protestant Priests, and I guess John Calvin is their Pope figure.

    These Neo Calvinist guys seem to be a warmed over version of Roman Catholicism, and I thought their theological ancestors were opposed to Roman Catholicism??

  89. Js wrote:

    If someone started a survivors blog for pastors they would get some serious hits.

    Oh please. The difference is that a ‘disciplinarian’ pastor and his sycophants can have a church member’s life ruined. A church member might be a PITA, but can’t have the pastor and his coterie shunned.

    Not saying that a pastor’s job is easy, just that your claim of symmetry in the relationship is bogus.

  90. Js wrote:

    There are some that want to know the name to apply the screws of church discipline as well. Why do you think people want to be anonymous when they write their pastor? It is obvious that they do not trust his response.

    Dave Miller has prohibited an honest discussion over at SBC Voices. He hasn’t posted my comment, or those of others, about completely un-Biblical excommunications/shunnings in our local NeoCal churches.

    He wouldn’t post mine:
    *witnessing a godly, faithful, doctor (married to his wife for 45+ years, strong marriage; loving father to his grown children) get excommunicated/shunned for disagreeing in private with how the pastors/elders were running the church and using the Bible. The senior pastor told the entire church membership that the
    doctor was not saved and they had *worked with him* (code for *tried to get him to obey us*) and to not have anything to do with him.

    *I was ordered in to elders’ meetings and told that I was *destined for hell* for bringing up the issue of child safety. I had discovered a Megan’s List sex offender in our midst while doing research for a prosecutor about another sex offender. The pastors/elders had brought their friend a Megan’s List sex offender into the church, didn’t tell the church membership and all parents, gave the sex offender church membership, and put him in positions of leadership and trust. The pastors/elders in the meeting with me said that *he was coming off Megan’s List*. His supervising law enforcement agency, the sex offenders’ task force, called that *all lies* and *total lies*. The task force was so alarmed that they contacted the Attorney General’s Office, who maintains Megan’s List, and who confirmed the pastors/elders story to me was *all lies* and *total lies*.

    I watched the sex offender run his hands through my friends’ young son’s hair, and his parents had no idea the man was a sex offender. The pastors/elders said it wasn’t a big deal and they would permit the sex offender to touch children. In the language of sex offenders, that’s called *grooming*.

    The pastors/elders were *offended* that I had used the term *sex offender* in the meeting. Me: “In the criminal code there are crimes called *sex offenses*. People found guilty of these crimes are called *sex offenders*. It’s not my term. It’s a term written in law, in federal and state statutes.”

  91. Gram3 wrote:

    @ Js:
    The double standard is that the OP could be anonymous (it was presumed that he had a valid reason) but SKIJ was attacked for anonymity. They want to have it both ways, and that is because both ways benefit them.

    Ok thanks, I didn’t see that on Voices, my fault.

  92. Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    Cats.

    Hmmmm. That’s not how I remember that quote. 🙂 I like cats. I like dogs, too. However, an unchecked cat colony can be a problem. We are almost halfway through spaying/neutering 17 “feral” cats. (I put that in quotes, because we’ve actually tamed all but two of them.)

  93. @ Deb:
    THose members who were involved with the Shepherding Movement back in the 1970’s and 80’s under the leadership of Charles Simpson, Bob Mumford, Derek Prince etc are still suffering from its effects. But as has been seen it comes in many dresses and is still around today which you skilfully expose at every turn ( I congratulate you for it). Derek Prince who was one of its chief promoters in hindsight called it that it was a spirit of witchcraft ( I was at a meeting in Belfast when I heard him say it) and John wimber called it a spirit of control. In this clip Prince speaks about it and the motivations of the leaders at the time which you will find very interesting.

  94. Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

    Isn’t this the same dynamic you find in an abusive domestic relationship?
    Where the abuser keeps pressuring the victim to stay “committed to their relationship”?

    Yes, it sure is. Abusers typically don’t want their target to divorce or leave.

  95. @ Js:

    Gram3 said it again here:

    Gram3 wrote:

    @ Js:
    The double standard is that the OP could be anonymous (it was presumed that he had a valid reason) but SKIJ was attacked for anonymity. They want to have it both ways, and that is because both ways benefit them.

    It is about the SBC Voices blog post that we have been discussing in this article. Not about YRR blogs in general.

    Although, (an aside) many YRR blogs don’t post comments that are in disagreement with the writer. That is a proven fact.

  96. Js wrote:

    You are leveling the very same accusation at them that so many here accuse the neocals of bringing on all those who disagree with them. Those who disagree don’t get the gospel. Codswallop.

    But didn’t Jesus say “by their fruits you shall know them.’

    That is, I don’t see many evidences of the indwelling Holy Spirit among the authoritarian Neo Cal guys. They even out right, via their behavior and attitudes, distinctly contradict some of Christ’s teachings, such as to avoid lording authority over others.

    So maybe the authoritarian Neo Cal guys don’t really know the Gospel or Jesus.

  97. @ Velour:
    Am I in moderation?

    Dave Miller’s just posted some self-righteous rant about not being anonymous and people willing to dye for the faith and other blah, blah…

    Again I ask who is does Dave Miller think she’s accountable too in regards to how he treats people on his blog?

  98. ^ Part 2.

    The pastors/elders at my former NeoCal church demanded to know if I had *prayed* for the sex offender. OK, we have an epidemic of child sexual abuse in the evangelical church (source: Church Mutual, the largest insurer of churches in the U.S. and attorney Richard Hammer at Church Law & Tax who has written that the sexual abuse of minors is the No. 1 reason that churches are sued every year) and we are discussing the safety of the church’s children in the presence of someone who is: a) a convicted felon; b) was found guilty of sex offenses; c) has served prison time; d) has a clear sexual interest in children; and e) is on Megan’s List of sex offenders.

    On and on their denial went. The senior pastor/elder said that if a father decided that the sex offender could touch his children that his *decision* was final for his family.

    Uhhhh, no.

    The bizarre NeoCal pastors/elders subscribe to that comp doctrine stuff and treat it like The Gospel. It has more in common with radical Islam than with our freedom in Christ.

    Me: “Under the criminal code, fathers AND mothers are required to protect their children. A mother is not off the criminal hook by abdicating her responsibility and handing it over to her husband. If her children are harmed, she can be arrested and prosecuted for felony child abuse, if convicted she can serve prison time, and her children can be taken from her and placed in the foster care system. It happens with great frequency.”

    The upshot?

    I was ordered to be excommunicated and shunned.

    My friends, whose young son the sex offender had focused on, thankfully planned their escape from that Gulag NeoCal Church *cult*/Shepherding Movement rebirthed. They moved out of the area, under the ruse of being *near relatives*. Had they not, they would have been placed under church discipline.

    Others who wanted to leave that church, who were troubled by its practices, tried to leave and were placed under *church discipline* for following their Christian consciences.

  99. Gram3 wrote:

    more pewpeons were Biblically literate and were true Bereans who desire to imitate, Christ, there would be a lot less abuse flowing in both directions.

    Isn’t this what TRUE pastors and/or teachers are supposed to be imparting to fellow believers? They are not to be imparting control, hierarchy, superiority, etc. They should be imparting, by example of their life, the love of God in Christ Jesus.

  100. Thanks for expanding the discussion by linking to the SBC post so we can see how even people within what would normally be thought a sympathetic camp are concerned with these excesses at the controlling churches. It’s a welcome development, much in line with a post that a comp friend of mine wrote critiquing John Piper’s recent advice to a young woman that she should not pursue a career in law enforcement because it would “violate” a man’s “sense of manhood.” No joke, those are the words he used, and my comp blogger friend was having none of it.

  101. Bridget wrote:

    js wrote:

    From my perspective, I think there is a difference in anonymity within the church versus anonymity online. Almost none of us are using our real names here at TWW, for example. But within the local church, I could see the difficulty of anonymous letters and such, as leaders who receive such letters can’t usually really address the situation with the people involved.

    We aren’t talking about in a local church, though. We are specifically talking about on line at SBC Voices.

    Sorry, I didn’t see the part of the thread on Voices that called out Serving Kids in Japan over anonymity. That oversight shaped my response. Please disregard my earlier reply.

  102. @ Velour:
    These stories don’t help their livelihoods. They only wanted to discuss church discipline within very tight controlled parameters. The bad PR has to be dealt with to save the system. Look at the theme in comments about the concept of church discipline. To question the concept that they understand is to affirm something heinous like fornication at church. The concept they embrace has to be defended at all costs.

    As Bill M pointed out they present a “false dilemma” to deflect and get people defending themselves. Once you do that, they control the narrative.

    They don’t want stories. That hurts them. People start thinking about victims and that is not good for their cause.

  103. Daisy wrote:

    Js wrote:

    You are leveling the very same accusation at them that so many here accuse the neocals of bringing on all those who disagree with them. Those who disagree don’t get the gospel. Codswallop.

    But didn’t Jesus say “by their fruits you shall know them.’

    That is, I don’t see many evidences of the indwelling Holy Spirit among the authoritarian Neo Cal guys. They even out right, via their behavior and attitudes, distinctly contradict some of Christ’s teachings, such as to avoid lording authority over others.

    So maybe the authoritarian Neo Cal guys don’t really know the Gospel or Jesus.

    Max made this insightful post on The Wartburg Watch on 8/15/15:

    “Education does not produce one ounce of revelation. Flesh controls New Calvinism, not the Spirit. Just a bunch of flesh babies rebelling against the way their parents do church. Intellectual, but not very smart. They pride themselves on being reformed, but have not been transformed by the love of Christ.”

  104. lydia wrote:

    @ Velour:
    These stories don’t help their livelihoods. They only wanted to discuss church discipline within very tight controlled parameters. The bad PR has to be dealt with to save the system. Look at the theme in comments about the concept of church discipline. To question the concept that they understand is to affirm something heinous like fornication at church. The concept they embrace has to be defended at all costs.

    As Bill M pointed out they present a “false dilemma” to deflect and get people defending themselves. Once you do that, they control the narrative.

    They don’t want stories. That hurts them. People start thinking about victims and that is not good for their cause.

    Precisely.

  105. Bridget wrote:

    @ Js:

    Gram3 said it again here:

    Gram3 wrote:

    @ Js:
    The double standard is that the OP could be anonymous (it was presumed that he had a valid reason) but SKIJ was attacked for anonymity. They want to have it both ways, and that is because both ways benefit them.

    It is about the SBC Voices blog post that we have been discussing in this article. Not about YRR blogs in general.

    Although, (an aside) many YRR blogs don’t post comments that are in disagreement with the writer. That is a proven fact.

    Thanks for clarifying. And I will say I have been blocked at some other nonCal blogs (kind of counterpart blogs to SBCVoices) a couple of times. So that goes both ways and I know it is hurtful to put time into a response only to have it shelved. I admire TWW for posting most comments.

  106. lydia wrote:

    Maybe it would help understand that sbcvoices is the attitude I am surrounded by at ground zero in church after church taken over with deceitful controlling methods.

    If every church (or even a majority of churches) in my city were just like my former cult, I’d be a tad concerned, too.

  107. lydia wrote:

    They don’t want stories. That hurts them. People start thinking about victims and that is not good for their cause.

    Root initially confessed to watching child porn to his former wife Karen Hinkley, according to interviews that Hinkley previously gave to the Observer, The Daily Beast and WatchKeep, the blog run by local activist Amy Smith. After Serving in Mission severed ties with Root, Dallas’ The Village Church wrote an email to all covenant members saying that they had notified police and were placing restrictions on Root, including keeping him away from any children’s facilities in the church. But privately, the church asked Hinkley to stay married to her husband and forgive him. When she insisted on an annulment, Pastor Matt Younger wrote an email to her chastising her for violating a membership covenant she had signed: “…this decision violates your covenant with us — and places you under discipline,” Younger wrote to her. The Village Church declined to discuss the case and instead sent us a generic statement in June about the membership covenant.
    http://www.dallasobserver.com/news/alleged-pedophile-used-to-be-counselor-at-dallas-mental-hospital-facing-closure-7492245

  108. I left a comment at the SBC blog but it’s in moderation, so I’m waiting to see if they let it through. THis is it’s text:

    I too am reformed, and completely unnerved by what I’ve seen in these churches that want to control the lives of their congregants through what they euphemistically call discipline. The worst excesses seem to come from those churches that employ a “covenant” (The Problem with Church Membership Covenants – bad doctrine hurts God’s people – https://timfall.wordpress.com/2015/05/27/covenant-with-god-not-church/) which is then held over the members’ heads: e.g., “You can’t leave under any circumstance we have not approved ahead of time, and if you try we will subject you to discipline up to and including excommunication if necessary. See how much we love you?”

  109. Velour wrote:

    Daisy wrote:

    Js wrote:

    You are leveling the very same accusation at them that so many here accuse the neocals of bringing on all those who disagree with them. Those who disagree don’t get the gospel. Codswallop.

    But didn’t Jesus say “by their fruits you shall know them.’

    That is, I don’t see many evidences of the indwelling Holy Spirit among the authoritarian Neo Cal guys. They even out right, via their behavior and attitudes, distinctly contradict some of Christ’s teachings, such as to avoid lording authority over others.

    So maybe the authoritarian Neo Cal guys don’t really know the Gospel or Jesus.

    Max made this insightful post on The Wartburg Watch on 8/15/15:

    “Education does not produce one ounce of revelation. Flesh controls New Calvinism, not the Spirit. Just a bunch of flesh babies rebelling against the way their parents do church. Intellectual, but not very smart. They pride themselves on being reformed, but have not been transformed by the love of Christ.”

    IMO, this is just too broad a swipe to take at a whole group of people. Controlled by the flesh, babies, rebels, not smart, proud, not transformed by the love of Christ. Some of you will probably stand up and cheer at that description but I just don’t see it. I see some rotten fruit and I see some great fruit in the people of this movement. It all comes down to the individual and his or her relationship with Jesus.

  110. Daisy wrote:

    Js

    So maybe the authoritarian Neo Cal guys don’t really know the Gospel or Jesus.

    Maybe. But I would think that would be a minority view even here, where there is much criticism of the NeoCals.

  111. The church in which I grew up had to deal with two pastors that needed to leave, in addition to one that was never hired. The latter told the deacons, after his trial sermon, that giving him complete authority was necessary for the success of the church. They called a cab and put him on his way back to wherever he came from!

    One that needed to leave was because his spouse was the worst gossip in the church and was causing a lot of issues by telling tales that were partly but not mostly true. Would spend hours on the phone with a group of women in the church. The elected lay leadership gave him an ultimatum to get her off the phone and keep her off, or he would have to leave. Two months later, he was told he had failed and must go.

    Another that was told he needed to leave was involved in a counseling situation with a young woman who was leaving her abusive spouse; she had a long standing admiration of the pastor from a previous time of service in the church when she was a young teenager. They began an affair, his long-time wife left him, and the church said it was time to go.

    So yes, there are times when the pastor or a staff member, or even a lay leader, needs to be disciplined. But that is best done quietly, with a minimal explanation to the church that is honest and generous, but not vindictive.

  112. Velour wrote:

    Js wrote:

    There are some that want to know the name to apply the screws of church discipline as well. Why do you think people want to be anonymous when they write their pastor? It is obvious that they do not trust his response.

    Dave Miller has prohibited an honest discussion over at SBC Voices. He hasn’t posted my comment, or those of others, about completely un-Biblical excommunications/shunnings in our local NeoCal churches.

    He wouldn’t post mine:
    *witnessing a godly, faithful, doctor (married to his wife for 45+ years, strong marriage; loving father to his grown children) get excommunicated/shunned for disagreeing in private with how the pastors/elders were running the church and using the Bible. The senior pastor told the entire church membership that the
    doctor was not saved and they had *worked with him* (code for *tried to get him to obey us*) and to not have anything to do with him.

    *I was ordered in to elders’ meetings and told that I was *destined for hell* for bringing up the issue of child safety. I had discovered a Megan’s List sex offender in our midst while doing research for a prosecutor about another sex offender. The pastors/elders had brought their friend a Megan’s List sex offender into the church, didn’t tell the church membership and all parents, gave the sex offender church membership, and put him in positions of leadership and trust. The pastors/elders in the meeting with me said that *he was coming off Megan’s List*. His supervising law enforcement agency, the sex offenders’ task force, called that *all lies* and *total lies*. The task force was so alarmed that they contacted the Attorney General’s Office, who maintains Megan’s List, and who confirmed the pastors/elders story to me was *all lies* and *total lies*.

    I watched the sex offender run his hands through my friends’ young son’s hair, and his parents had no idea the man was a sex offender. The pastors/elders said it wasn’t a big deal and they would permit the sex offender to touch children. In the language of sex offenders, that’s called *grooming*.

    The pastors/elders were *offended* that I had used the term *sex offender* in the meeting. Me: “In the criminal code there are crimes called *sex offenses*. People found guilty of these crimes are called *sex offenders*. It’s not my term. It’s a term written in law, in federal and state statutes.”

    Of course, I couldn’t know that he had shelved your comments. I am sorry that happened. Let me walk back my earlier comments about an excellent discussion and just say I am glad the post was made. With all its flaws I think it will help move things in a good direction.

  113. Velour wrote:

    Dave Miller has prohibited an honest discussion over at SBC Voices. He hasn’t posted my comment, or those of others, about completely un-Biblical excommunications/shunnings in our local NeoCal churches.

    That is one of the reasons for this post. We would love for those of you whose comments have not been posted over at SBC Voices to express your views here. And by all means let us know if your comment was not approved. 🙂

  114. roebuck wrote:

    Js wrote:

    If someone started a survivors blog for pastors they would get some serious hits.

    Oh please. The difference is that a ‘disciplinarian’ pastor and his sycophants can have a church member’s life ruined. A church member might be a PITA, but can’t have the pastor and his coterie shunned.

    Not saying that a pastor’s job is easy, just that your claim of symmetry in the relationship is bogus.

    I think you underestimate the power of a church to ruin a pastor’s life. This is especially true with smaller churches and smaller towns. The idea that every pastor has a coterie is false. There are very few pastors with such cover. The loudest and most influential are not by any means the majority. So when one of the great majority of pastors who is not particularly influential gets tangled in a mess (and we need to acknowledge that some congregations tend to be dysfunctional) the way he can be shunned and slandered is quite comparable to what can be done to church members and often over issues just as frivolous as some of the worst pastoral abuses of church discipline.

  115. js wrote:

    Velour wrote:

    Daisy wrote:

    Js wrote:

    You are leveling the very same accusation at them that so many here accuse the neocals of bringing on all those who disagree with them. Those who disagree don’t get the gospel. Codswallop.

    But didn’t Jesus say “by their fruits you shall know them.’

    That is, I don’t see many evidences of the indwelling Holy Spirit among the authoritarian Neo Cal guys. They even out right, via their behavior and attitudes, distinctly contradict some of Christ’s teachings, such as to avoid lording authority over others.

    So maybe the authoritarian Neo Cal guys don’t really know the Gospel or Jesus.

    Max made this insightful post on The Wartburg Watch on 8/15/15:

    “Education does not produce one ounce of revelation. Flesh controls New Calvinism, not the Spirit. Just a bunch of flesh babies rebelling against the way their parents do church. Intellectual, but not very smart. They pride themselves on being reformed, but have not been transformed by the love of Christ.”

    IMO, this is just too broad a swipe to take at a whole group of people. Controlled by the flesh, babies, rebels, not smart, proud, not transformed by the love of Christ. Some of you will probably stand up and cheer at that description but I just don’t see it. I see some rotten fruit and I see some great fruit in the people of this movement. It all comes down to the individual and his or her relationship with Jesus.

    But we aren’t just talking about individuals. We are talking about institutional changes that the NeoCals have made. Even conservative Christian men that I know in Europe, elders in their churches for more than 40 years, have said that something terrible has happened to the American church and it has more in common with radical Islam’s authoritarian structure than with our freedom in Christ. People around the world see the problems.

    The NeoCals have gotten it wrong, wrong, wrong on so many counts. Mark Dever at 9Marks has said that churches need (unbiblical) Church Membership Covenants to keep members from slipping through the *back exits* and being on the membership rolls.

    Mark Dever lacks basic, adult, healthy, loving problem-solving skills. He has a contempt for other adults, for other Christians. Mark can’t pick up the phone, call people and ask them, “Do you consider yourself to be a member or not?” What’s so hard about that????

    If church members think they have to *escape through the back exits*, then maybe Mark Dever you are *holding them hostage*, there is something wrong with you, and you need to take an honest look at your FAILINGS. Ditto your leadership.

    Dever just constantly espouses that it’s somebody else’s fault and they are to blame. Nonsense!

  116. js wrote:

    Thanks for clarifying. And I will say I have been blocked at some other nonCal blogs (kind of counterpart blogs to SBCVoices) a couple of times. So that goes both ways and I know it is hurtful to put time into a response only to have it shelved. I admire TWW for posting most comments.

    Sorry to hear that. Unless a comment is really off the wall, I see no reason to block it. The only reason I know of would be one of having an agenda and wanting to control the dialogue in a certain direction. I don’t like to participate on those blogs at all.

  117. Deb wrote:

    Velour wrote:

    Dave Miller has prohibited an honest discussion over at SBC Voices. He hasn’t posted my comment, or those of others, about completely un-Biblical excommunications/shunnings in our local NeoCal churches.

    That is one of the reasons for this post. We would love for those of you whose comments have not been posted over at SBC Voices to express your views here. And by all means let us know if your comment was not approved.

    Thanks, Deb!

  118. Patrice wrote:

    But when the “disciplining” process continues with an oft-included shunning of one sort or another, the friends you made at the church treat you as a non-person: ignoring you at the grocery store, not returning calls/emails, no more invitations to gatherings, losing shared childcare and car-sharing, etc.

    Which turns it from ridiculous to unconscionable.

    Unconscionable is a good descriptor, but I think I would use the phrase:
    — sick and twisted —
    The Lord Jesus came to put an end to the behavior you’ve described, not enshrine it.

  119. Gram3 wrote:

    Js wrote:

    Those who disagree don’t get the gospel. Codswallop.

    If someone denies what Christ accomplished on the Cross and in the Resurrection, they do not get the Gospel.
    Why don’t you try addressing substantive points?

    I will try to address your substantive points in order.

    To this point, I must say that I was a Christian for many years before I understood the universe-altering shape of the Christ event (and my understanding is still incomplete). To equate a denial of some aspect of the person and work of Christ with a lack of getting the gospel is too extreme IMO. Everyone is a work in progress. True Bereans never stop learning. I may deny something today about the work of Christ which I one day will embrace. This doesn’t mean I don’t get the gospel. If we have to wait for complete understanding than we have to say no Christian gets the gospel.

  120. js wrote:

    Velour wrote:

    Js wrote:

    There are some that want to know the name to apply the screws of church discipline as well. Why do you think people want to be anonymous when they write their pastor? It is obvious that they do not trust his response.

    Dave Miller has prohibited an honest discussion over at SBC Voices. He hasn’t posted my comment, or those of others, about completely un-Biblical excommunications/shunnings in our local NeoCal churches.

    He wouldn’t post mine:
    *witnessing a godly, faithful, doctor (married to his wife for 45+ years, strong marriage; loving father to his grown children) get excommunicated/shunned for disagreeing in private with how the pastors/elders were running the church and using the Bible. The senior pastor told the entire church membership that the
    doctor was not saved and they had *worked with him* (code for *tried to get him to obey us*) and to not have anything to do with him.

    *I was ordered in to elders’ meetings and told that I was *destined for hell* for bringing up the issue of child safety. I had discovered a Megan’s List sex offender in our midst while doing research for a prosecutor about another sex offender. The pastors/elders had brought their friend a Megan’s List sex offender into the church, didn’t tell the church membership and all parents, gave the sex offender church membership, and put him in positions of leadership and trust. The pastors/elders in the meeting with me said that *he was coming off Megan’s List*. His supervising law enforcement agency, the sex offenders’ task force, called that *all lies* and *total lies*. The task force was so alarmed that they contacted the Attorney General’s Office, who maintains Megan’s List, and who confirmed the pastors/elders story to me was *all lies* and *total lies*.

    I watched the sex offender run his hands through my friends’ young son’s hair, and his parents had no idea the man was a sex offender. The pastors/elders said it wasn’t a big deal and they would permit the sex offender to touch children. In the language of sex offenders, that’s called *grooming*.

    The pastors/elders were *offended* that I had used the term *sex offender* in the meeting. Me: “In the criminal code there are crimes called *sex offenses*. People found guilty of these crimes are called *sex offenders*. It’s not my term. It’s a term written in law, in federal and state statutes.”

    Of course, I couldn’t know that he had shelved your comments. I am sorry that happened. Let me walk back my earlier comments about an excellent discussion and just say I am glad the post was made. With all its flaws I think it will help move things in a good direction.

    All its flaws? They are spineless cowards over there and NOT REAL MEN!

  121. Pingback: Linkathon! » PhoenixPreacher | PhoenixPreacher

  122. js wrote:

    roebuck wrote:
    Js wrote:
    If someone started a survivors blog for pastors they would get some serious hits.
    Oh please. The difference is that a ‘disciplinarian’ pastor and his sycophants can have a church member’s life ruined. A church member might be a PITA, but can’t have the pastor and his coterie shunned.
    Not saying that a pastor’s job is easy, just that your claim of symmetry in the relationship is bogus.
    I think you underestimate the power of a church to ruin a pastor’s life. This is especially true with smaller churches and smaller towns. The idea that every pastor has a coterie is false. There are very few pastors with such cover. The loudest and most influential are not by any means the majority. So when one of the great majority of pastors who is not particularly influential gets tangled in a mess (and we need to acknowledge that some congregations tend to be dysfunctional) the way he can be shunned and slandered is quite comparable to what can be done to church members and often over issues just as frivolous as some of the worst pastoral abuses of church discipline.

    We have been talking about large churches, with authoritarian pastors, very definitely posessing coteries, and their abuse of church discipline. Don’t change the subject.

  123. roebuck wrote:

    js wrote:

    roebuck wrote:
    Js wrote:
    If someone started a survivors blog for pastors they would get some serious hits.
    Oh please. The difference is that a ‘disciplinarian’ pastor and his sycophants can have a church member’s life ruined. A church member might be a PITA, but can’t have the pastor and his coterie shunned.
    Not saying that a pastor’s job is easy, just that your claim of symmetry in the relationship is bogus.
    I think you underestimate the power of a church to ruin a pastor’s life. This is especially true with smaller churches and smaller towns. The idea that every pastor has a coterie is false. There are very few pastors with such cover. The loudest and most influential are not by any means the majority. So when one of the great majority of pastors who is not particularly influential gets tangled in a mess (and we need to acknowledge that some congregations tend to be dysfunctional) the way he can be shunned and slandered is quite comparable to what can be done to church members and often over issues just as frivolous as some of the worst pastoral abuses of church discipline.

    We have been talking about large churches, with authoritarian pastors, very definitely posessing coteries, and their abuse of church discipline. Don’t change the subject.

    Thank you, Roebuck!

    And we have been talking about un-Biblical, authoritarian pastors destroying the lives and reputations of upstanding Christians for the slightest dissent, exercising inappropriate control over the lives of Believers, church leaders who have for all that they have decried the Roman Catholic Church set their church structure up EXACTLY like the RCC with the senior pastor crowned as “Pope” and the other elders as “Cardinals”, complete with excommunications and shunnings. They have brought a reproach upon the name of Christ, the cause of Christ, and The Gospel. Not even unbelievers subscribe to such wicked, evil practices and even unbelievers are horrified at these practices.

    Calvin was a murderer. You worship a man who actively harmed people? Well that’s the beginning of your problems. Calvin was an evil man. He did great evil. You have all become like the evil man that you have worshipped. Christ isn’t King; Calvin is King.

    The Apostle Paul on the other hand was a repentant murderer, who had been entirely transformed by Jesus Christ. Big difference.

  124. Js wrote:

    You are leveling the very same accusation at them that so many here accuse the neocals of bringing on all those who disagree with them. Those who disagree don’t get the gospel. Codswallop.

    I understand the impotence of the “no true Scotsman” argument, but in more than one way, the problems discussed on this blog are that serious, IMO.

    From beginning to end to resurrection, Jesus modeled humility, mercy and clarity. Even though he was also God, he “didn’t consider equality with God something to be grasped”. That verse was brought up in comments at linked post, and someone responded that considering equality with God wasn’t bad, in itself, and inferred that to church leadership. That was a huge tell, IMO.

    Plus take the idea of “keys”, which is a basis for their paradigm of church discipline. It is about as far as one can get from Jesus’ example to believe that you are one of a favored few to get the keys to heaven/hell simply because you’ve declared yourself a leader (and a few others have agreed). If even Christ didn’t do that, who do they think they are?

    When things bend that far from the center and reason for our faith, I think it’s appropriate to wonder whether we are talking about the same thing when we use our faith words. And yeah, it’s not a useful point in debate, but for me personally, that conclusion allowed me to finally let these folks go.

    I think the fundies and neo-puritans are correct to notice the huge disparity in our understanding of the meaning of words. Even on something relatively minor, such as church discipline, there’s a wide gap. If they are right, then I am wrong; it must be so, because the differences reach up to contradiction.

    What I cannot accept is their attempts to define and own all the words for themselves. What many in our nation have come to see as Christianity bears no resemblance to my precious experience of Christ. When that is so, what can one do except disavow it?

  125. Gram3 wrote:

    Js wrote:

    A doctrine which holds that some people who are indwelt by the Holy Spirit are ordained by God to rule over other people who are indwelt by the same Holy Spirit, those people do not understand the Gospel and what Christ accomplished.

    Why don’t you try addressing substantive points?

    The key word here is “rule.” This word poisons the well of the whole discussion. Is there a place in the world for God-ordained leadership? I believe yes and would say that it is manifested at a minimum in governing authorities, parents, husbands and wives, employers, and in the church. Does this leadership by necessity imply inferiority of person? I would say no. Jesus himself in Luke 2 is said to have submitted Himself to His parents, the very same world picked up by Paul in all the marriage passages. If the perfect Son of God submitted Himself to His parents, how can submission in itself imply inequality? On the matter of class distinctions I am fully in agreement with Galatians 3:18 while also acknowledging that this verse does not nullify the leadership given above. Jesus removes all distinctions in relation to Him, all have access, but He does not remove all God-given roles.

    I think Christian leadership contains a directive element but it isn’t ultimately about ruling or lording over or anything like that. Worldly leadership is heavy-handed (this is my core problem with our current church discipline issues) and authoritarian. Godly leadership is focused on the benefit of the other. I don’t deny that leadership exists. It is all over the Bible in various forms and is not always an accommodation to human sin. I don’t deny that in marriage the husband has a leadership role. I don’t say that because the Bible says the husband has a leadership role but because the Bible clearly says in Ephesians 5, Colossians 3 and 1 Peter 3 that wives should submit to husbands and I interpret this to mean that the husband must have some sort of leadership role the wife must come under. My theory is that leadership is not mentioned outright because of the tendency among sinful people to lord authority over one another. This is seen in the Colossians passage where Paul urges husbands not to be harsh with their wives but rather to love them. Why should wives submit to husbands? Because it is fitting in the Lord. That’s what Paul says in Colossians. It is not because he is making a cultural accommodation. It is not because he thinks men are superior to women. It is because he thinks it is fitting in the Lord. That’s good enough for me and I think Paul got the gospel.

  126. js wrote:

    I just don’t see it. I see some rotten fruit and I see some great fruit in the people of this movement. It all comes down to the individual and his or her relationship with Jesus.

    What did Jesus say about the tree that produces rotten fruit? At what point do we look at the carnage and frankly acknowledge that there is something wrong with the system? But it is not permitted to go there. The “leaders” know best because they think they have some special connection to God or some authority vested in them by God because they are male and/or clergy. That is the rotten tree that produces rotten fruit. And that is why I say they do not understand the Gospel and what Jesus accomplished and what the Holy Spirit does. You can call that codswallop, but what do you call what they did to Karen Hinkley? To Todd Wilhelm? To how many others? These are not outliers; these are the predictable rotten fruit produced by a rotten tree.

  127. @ js:
    FWIW, I did not question their salvation. I questioned whether or not they understand the Gospel and what Jesus accomplished. Those are not the same things.

  128. Js wrote:

    The focus on tww is mostly on the abuses that flow from pulpit to the pew but there is certainly a strong tide in the other direction. If someone started a survivors blog for pastors they would get some serious hits.

    Gram3 wrote:

    I don’t know about “strong tide” in the other direction, but I will agree that there are troublesome pewpeons. And the discerning pewpeons need to bring some personal correction to bad attitudes among their fellows.

    Gram3 wrote:

    Our fundamental disagreement is that one class of humans is ordained to rule/discipline another class of humans.

    These comments outlines the problem for me. The hierarchical system can be abusive to both parties. If you outline the duties and responsibilities some people take on as a pastor, it is ripe for abuse, either direction. It can be burnout or pride. Authority unmoored from its foundation has problems, accountability, trust, and mutual concern go together.

    Authoritarian churches may be created not so much from a power grab but a power give away. I’ve seen way too many want to leave the dirty work to someone else to make the decisions. Too many don’t want to deal with disagreements with others, that would actually call for the Holy Spirit being active, it would call for gifts to be exercised such as peacemaker. So they delegate the hard part to a pastor and either they abuse the pastor or the pastor abuses them. Missing is that someone who when given too much authority will refuse it.

  129. @ js:
    Paul said Peter did not get the Gospel. Peter was with the Lord for more than three years, yet he got caught up in a system of wrong-thinking because he did not get the Gospel. Was Paul out of line for calling Peter out publicly? Was Paul questioning whether Peter was in the faith? Was Paul throwing out codswallop? Or was Paul defending the Gospel from false teaching that had crept into the church and had been adopted by one of the apostles himself? If only more church “leaders” had the spine and Biblical literacy to call out their brethren. However, they actually view themselves as more of a union or a guild or a special interest group, by all appearances.

  130. Gram3 wrote:

    js wrote:

    I just don’t see it. I see some rotten fruit and I see some great fruit in the people of this movement. It all comes down to the individual and his or her relationship with Jesus.

    What did Jesus say about the tree that produces rotten fruit? At what point do we look at the carnage and frankly acknowledge that there is something wrong with the system? But it is not permitted to go there. The “leaders” know best because they think they have some special connection to God or some authority vested in them by God because they are male and/or clergy. That is the rotten tree that produces rotten fruit. And that is why I say they do not understand the Gospel and what Jesus accomplished and what the Holy Spirit does. You can call that codswallop, but what do you call what they did to Karen Hinkley? To Todd Wilhelm? To how many others? These are not outliers; these are the predictable rotten fruit produced by a rotten tree.

    Spot on, Gram3! They are producing rotten fruit because they are at the core a rotten tree!

  131. Tim wrote:

    John Piper’s recent advice to a young woman that she should not pursue a career in law enforcement because it would “violate” a man’s “sense of manhood.” No joke, those are the words he used, and my comp blogger friend was having none of it.

    I sometimes think anything and everything a woman does makes John Piper feel as though his manhood has been violated. And, due to that, he tells all women everywhere that they must cease doing X, Y, and Z because he assumes all other men must be the same as him.

    It reminds me of when I was a teen, my mother would go around the house telling the rest of the family to put on sweaters because she felt cold.

    Anyway, yes, it’s nice to see when someone inside a particular camp calls out any overreach, bizarre, or unfair behavior by someone in that same camp.

  132. js wrote:

    If we have to wait for complete understanding than we have to say no Christian gets the gospel.

    Red herring or false dichotomy. I can decide which.

  133. js wrote:

    and I interpret this to mean that the husband must have some sort of leadership role the wife must come under.

    And many interpret this different than you. In many churches, a husband and wife are disqualified from much service, shunned, and defriended, if they interpret these scriptures differently.

  134. Bridget wrote:

    js wrote:

    Thanks for clarifying. And I will say I have been blocked at some other nonCal blogs (kind of counterpart blogs to SBCVoices) a couple of times. So that goes both ways and I know it is hurtful to put time into a response only to have it shelved. I admire TWW for posting most comments.

    Sorry to hear that. Unless a comment is really off the wall, I see no reason to block it. The only reason I know of would be one of having an agenda and wanting to control the dialogue in a certain direction. I don’t like to participate on those blogs at all.

    Yes, Bridget. My story at my former Gulag NeoCal Church – the excommunications and shunnings of good and godly Christians – shoots a canon-size hole through Dave Miller & Company’s arguments over at SBC Voices. That’s what they won’t post it. They are spineless cowards, every last one of them!

  135. Gram3 wrote:

    Red herring or false dichotomy. I can decide which.

    He’s just tossing out distractions and diversions left and right. Hard to know where he is coming from, actually.

  136. js wrote:

    Why should wives submit to husbands? Because it is fitting in the Lord. That’s what Paul says in Colossians. It is not because he is making a cultural accommodation. It is not because he thinks men are superior to women. It is because he thinks it is fitting in the Lord.

    Hogwash! Paul was writing a corrective to the abusive role of husbands in the first century household codes, carried from earlier writings by Plato, among others. And he said husbands should love their wives to the point of being willing to give up their life to a tortured death for their wife, as Christ did for the church. A vast change from the culture of the time. And Paul also said that in the kingdom, there is neither male nor female, as in distinctions about sex are not relevant in the church in its ideal state. He was arguing against abusive patriarchy in the church, while dealing with people, including women, who were living in Ephesus and teaching heresy based on the cult of Artemis.

  137. js wrote:

    IMO, this is just too broad a swipe to take at a whole group of people. Controlled by the flesh, babies, rebels, not smart, proud, not transformed by the love of Christ.

    But is it true? Do these people, many of them, more or less show such traits? I say yes, yes they do.

  138. js wrote:

    Jesus removes all distinctions in relation to Him, all have access, but He does not remove all God-given roles.

    What “roles” has God ordained which are assigned due to a person’s circumstances of birth or genetic endowment? You need to supply some support for that. All of the instances you cite were for a limited time and are not tied to a person’s being. If you have a Biblical citation for authority “ordained” by God which is irrevocable and which is grounded in a person’s identity rather than in a person’s gifting or character, then please supply that. Beyond the basics of reproductive “roles,” I think your position is insupportable from the text unless you first assume what your burden is to prove.

  139. js wrote:

    the Bible clearly says in Ephesians 5, Colossians 3 and 1 Peter 3 that wives should submit to husbands and I interpret this to mean that the husband must have some sort of leadership role the wife must come under.

    There is Bruce Ware’s favorite word, “Clearly.” Your interpretation is not infallible. As I’ve said before here, an instruction given to one party to submit to another party is not a grant of authority to the other party. This is not a difficult concept, but it is certainly one which is glossed over as if it did not exist. Both parties are in submission to Christ, and that manifests in our *attitudes* toward one another, not in how we play a role.

  140. BeenThereDoneThat wrote:

    Wow! Dave Miller went after Serving Kids in Japan! SKiJ is one of the most thoughtful commenters on the blogs I read.

    Aww, shucks… (blush)

    wrote:

    I guess SKiJ has his own spiritual abuse tale to tell now.

    If this is the extent of the spiritual abuse that I face in my life, I’ll have gotten off easy. I’ve actually been pretty lucky in my experience of church(es). I honestly didn’t know how lucky, until I started reading the tales of many others here, and on other survivor blogs.

    My reasons for maintaining my anonymity aren’t all that dramatic. Simple self-protection from any random weirdos who might be lurking, and from the “church” of Scientology, which I mock and criticize on a regular basis. (They’re not nearly as scary as they used to be but, hey, better safe than sorry.) If that’s not good enough for Dave Miller — well, I guess he’s editor for a reason.

  141. js wrote:

    That’s good enough for me and I think Paul got the gospel.

    I think that Paul plainly teaches that women are saved by bearing children. That is what he is clearly teaching in 1 Timothy 2:15. I think that every man who does not greet his brothers in Christ with a kiss is in rebellion against Paul’s clear commandment, and I further believe that those rebellious men have capitulated to the modern cultural attitudes of people who have rejected God’s good and beautiful design and order.

    I can play that game, too. Can you maintain your hermeneutic consistently?

  142. Gram3 wrote:

    js wrote:

    That’s good enough for me and I think Paul got the gospel.

    I think that Paul plainly teaches that women are saved by bearing children. That is what he is clearly teaching in 1 Timothy 2:15. I think that every man who does not greet his brothers in Christ with a kiss is in rebellion against Paul’s clear commandment, and I further believe that those rebellious men have capitulated to the modern cultural attitudes of people who have rejected God’s good and beautiful design and order.

    I can play that game, too. Can you maintain your hermeneutic consistently?

    Christian Wimbledon! Go, Gram3!!!

  143. js wrote:

    Everyone is a work in progress. True Bereans never stop learning. I may deny something today about the work of Christ which I one day will embrace. This doesn’t mean I don’t get the gospel. If we have to wait for complete understanding than we have to say no Christian gets the gospel.

    I’m just not getting this. In the here and now, these NeoCal power hungry guys are not living the Gospel, not practicing it. Even if they see the light some day in the future, in the meantime, they are hurting people. And turning other people off to Christianity.

    I’d be more concerned for their victims than for the preachers and elders, the preachers and elders who are doing the abuse.

  144. Gus wrote:

    @ dee:
    In other words, these guys need to be removed for “pastoral malpractice”? For being quack pastors?

    Seriously, when is the last time a church had the ” guts” to remove a ” quack” in the pulpit?

  145. Arce wrote:

    Another that was told he needed to leave was involved in a counseling situation with a young woman who was leaving her abusive spouse; she had a long standing admiration of the pastor from a previous time of service in the church when she was a young teenager. They began an affair, his long-time wife left him

    Just wanted to high light here a story of a married woman who started an affair with a married man.

    Adult singles are often cast by Christians as harlots to be avoided by all (we single ladies supposedly just want to tempt men left and right, and especially have affairs with married guys), when there are singles who pose no threat. Sometimes you have to watch out for married people.

  146. js wrote:

    Does this leadership by necessity imply inferiority of person? I would say no.

    You cannot make a consistent case for ontological equality and eternal functional subordination due to the condition of femaleness without an appeal to the mystery of the immanent Trinity and invoking a supposed eternal functional subordination of the Son. That is how a lust for the subordination of females and a lust for authority on the part of “pastors” leads to the heresy of ESS.

    You want to talk about accusing people of not getting the Gospel right? That is precisely what the Female Subordinationists do to people who reject their dogma. They say that the Gospel cannot be rightly understood nor rightly “pictured” without an eternally subordinate Son and eternally subordinate females.

    That is the kind of thinking that you are defending, whether you intend to do so or not.

  147. @ Daisy:
    The pastor took advantage of an adoring woman who was seeking counseling in dealing with her failing marriage w/children involved, not vice versa.

  148. js wrote:

    in the world for God-ordained leadership? I believe yes and would say that it is manifested at a minimum in governing authorities, parents, husbands and wives, employers, and in the church. Does this leadership by necessity imply inferiority of person? I would say no.

    The Bible does not teach that husbands have authority over their wives in a unilateral, one way deal. Please see our conversations about the bogus gender complementarian views which insist men have authority over women (especially husbands to wives) in this last thread:
    Complementarians or Eternal Female Subordinationists? Why I Still Don’t Get It.
    http://thewartburgwatch.com/2015/07/27/complementarians-or-eternal-female-subordinationists-why-i-still-dont-get-it/

    Leadership roles can and are unfair if one group never has a shot at it. Most of these churches that are authoritarian would never permit me, a woman to be in a leadership role, all due to the fact I was born a woman.

    I never, ever have a chance of earning a leadership position, not via my talents, further education, skills, etc.

    Telling me I can never be a leader due to my gender is yes telling me I am inferior. You can blather on all day about me being “equal in worth but not in role,” but yes, it’s the same thing. I’m unequal in being and in role.

    So yes, leadership can at times be defined or practiced so that it is unbiblical and unfair, and it denotes inferiority and sends a message that those being rule over are not equals.

  149. Clarissa wrote:

    I am seriously confused. Maybe because I don’t live in the US so am used to a completely different church background. If a person wants to leave a church then surely they just leave. They might, or might not let others know; they might or might not be changing churches, or feel they need a break from ‘organised’ worship -no matter, how can a church stop them leaving?

    They can harass you with text messages, emails and phone calls, or even trying to confront you when they accidentally meet you in a public place. They can drag your name before the assembled church, giving out all sorts of personal details, and either encouraging the church members to pray for you, or (if they determine it is needed, for their protection from your contagion, or perhaps to deliver you over to the devil for your ultimate salvation) to shun you and your family members, including your children. They can insist that you (and/or your children) meet with them to discuss your “issues.” (From my experience, such a meeting is little more than gaslighting and badgering, to show you all the places you are wrong and they are right, trying to wear you down until you agree with them, loose your disagreement, and come back under their control.)

  150. Muff Potter wrote:

    — sick and twisted —
    The Lord Jesus came to put an end to the behavior you’ve described, not enshrine it.

    Yes, he did. And yet this cr*p has echoes throughout church history.

    It might be fun to write an article on what we commenters would consider church heresies through time. Suspect it wouldn’t be much like the theologians’ views.

  151. refugee wrote:

    Clarissa wrote:
    I am seriously confused. Maybe because I don’t live in the US so am used to a completely different church background. If a person wants to leave a church then surely they just leave. They might, or might not let others know; they might or might not be changing churches, or feel they need a break from ‘organised’ worship -no matter, how can a church stop them leaving?

    They can harass you with text messages, emails and phone calls, or even trying to confront you when they accidentally meet you in a public place. They can drag your name before the assembled church, giving out all sorts of personal details, and either encouraging the church members to pray for you, or (if they determine it is needed, for their protection from your contagion, or perhaps to deliver you over to the devil for your ultimate salvation) to shun you and your family members, including your children. They can insist that you (and/or your children) meet with them to discuss your “issues.” (From my experience, such a meeting is little more than gaslighting and badgering, to show you all the places you are wrong and they are right, trying to wear you down until you agree with them, loose your disagreement, and come back under their control.)

    Oh, and I forgot to add, if they are really power tripping, they can try to blacklist you with all the other churches in the area, warning the churches against you, so that even if you are inclined to find another place for worship and fellowship, you’ll find yourself turned away, excluded, sent back to the original church to have your “issues” dealt with. This is what leaving a church (or trying to leave) when “under church discipline” looks like, in their book.

  152. roebuck wrote:

    Hard to know where he is coming from, actually.

    Maybe I’m wrong, but I perceive js as viewing this blog as being one that beats up on preachers/Neo Cals.

    We are mean or unfair for criticizing abusive preachers and/or their theological systems.

    We’re supposed to realize that not all preachers (#NotAllPreachers) are horrible people and that some actually get abused by church- goers.

    We should have thread after thread on this blog featuring stories of preachers who were driven out of their churches or professions by angry, terrible pew sitters.

  153. Gram3 wrote:

    I think that Paul plainly teaches that women are saved by bearing children. That is what he is clearly teaching in 1 Timothy 2:15. I think that every man who does not greet his brothers in Christ with a kiss is in rebellion against Paul’s clear commandment, and I further believe that those rebellious men have capitulated to the modern cultural attitudes of people who have rejected God’s good and beautiful design and order.
    I can play that game, too. Can you maintain your hermeneutic consistently?

    Don’t forget Paul’s commands about every Target store being in rebellion against God’s intent for the genders when they removed their girl and boy signs from the Toy department. CBMW and Franklin Graham say so. 🙂

  154. Velour wrote:

    Gram3 wrote:
    js wrote:
    That’s good enough for me and I think Paul got the gospel.
    I think that Paul plainly teaches that women are saved by bearing children. That is what he is clearly teaching in 1 Timothy 2:15. I think that every man who does not greet his brothers in Christ with a kiss is in rebellion against Paul’s clear commandment, and I further believe that those rebellious men have capitulated to the modern cultural attitudes of people who have rejected God’s good and beautiful design and order.
    I can play that game, too. Can you maintain your hermeneutic consistently?

    Christian Wimbledon! Go, Gram3!!!

    That’s it, Daisy. There’s no hope for you, or for our eldest (who is a little younger than you, I think) who is as yet unmarried and has no prospects on the horizon. Perhaps we ought to send her out on the street… she can keep you company as you search for a sperm donor, the bearer and instrument of your salvation.

    Because that is what you get when you follow that interpretation to its ultimate end.

    (Very familiar teaching — we came out of a church where “family” was held up as an idol, though they’d never admit it.)

    (And yes, Gram3, I realize you’re only quoting what others have taught. Thank you again for shedding light on that verse about child-bearing in that recent thread.)

  155. Daisy wrote:

    We’re supposed to realize that not all preachers (#NotAllPreachers) are horrible people and that some actually get abused by church- goers.

    Well, actually, that is true. Let’s not forget that. I know I’ve heard some sad stories on survivor blogs from pastors who were abused as well. Some churches are just plain toxic.

    Who was it who said the more they got to know people, the more they loved their dog?

  156. An Attorney wrote:

    The pastor took advantage of an adoring woman who was seeking counseling in dealing with her failing marriage w/children involved, not vice versa.

    Okay, but the fact remains these were two married people, not an unmarried woman making the moves on a married guy, which is the usual Christian stereotype.

  157. Daisy wrote:

    Okay, but the fact remains these were two married people, not an unmarried woman making the moves on a married guy, which is the usual Christian stereotype.

    Please put quote marks around “Christian”!!!!

  158. Daisy wrote:

    Gram3 wrote:

    I think that Paul plainly teaches that women are saved by bearing children. That is what he is clearly teaching in 1 Timothy 2:15. I think that every man who does not greet his brothers in Christ with a kiss is in rebellion against Paul’s clear commandment, and I further believe that those rebellious men have capitulated to the modern cultural attitudes of people who have rejected God’s good and beautiful design and order.
    I can play that game, too. Can you maintain your hermeneutic consistently?

    Don’t forget Paul’s commands about every Target store being in rebellion against God’s intent for the genders when they removed their girl and boy signs from the Toy department. CBMW and Franklin Graham say so.

    And they don’t remember the time that stores, including toy stores, had *no signs* for boys and girls and we did just fine, thank you.

  159. refugee wrote:

    They can harass you with text messages, emails and phone calls, or even trying to confront you when they accidentally meet you in a public place.

    I think the WatchKeep blog had a comment by someone (can’t remember if it was a man or a woman) who said their church put their name up on a big screen in a power point presentation and talked about him/her when he wasn’t there. I think the church blabbed about this person’s personal business in front of the whole church.

  160. Jeffrey J Chalmers wrote:

    But, I can NOT get my hands/mind around the concept that Calvanista’s are advocating the concept/need/requirement of a “mediator”, What? They need to articulate this scripturally, and define, clearly, how it is any different than a Roman Catholic Priest??? Given they control the “keys”, they are to a outside observer, NO DIFFERENT than a Roman Catholic Priest…

    You know, that’s a good point. We did not come out of a Baptist tradition, and yet this whole “mediator” thing was in place. Our elders watched over us, expecting to give an answer (for our salvation, for all I can figure, from their words and actions). And yet, what do *they* have to do with *our* salvation? We are to work out our (own) salvation with fear and trembling, or so I am moved to understand.

  161. refugee wrote:

    Daisy wrote:

    We’re supposed to realize that not all preachers (#NotAllPreachers) are horrible people and that some actually get abused by church- goers.

    Well, actually, that is true. Let’s not forget that. I know I’ve heard some sad stories on survivor blogs from pastors who were abused as well. Some churches are just plain toxic.

    Who was it who said the more they got to know people, the more they loved their dog?

    I have seen former pastors post their stories here of being spiritually abused. All are welcome here. That’s the nice thing about The Wartburg Watch. Few are excluded, unless they demonstrate a lack of empathy for victims.

  162. refugee wrote:

    Jeffrey J Chalmers wrote:

    But, I can NOT get my hands/mind around the concept that Calvanista’s are advocating the concept/need/requirement of a “mediator”, What? They need to articulate this scripturally, and define, clearly, how it is any different than a Roman Catholic Priest??? Given they control the “keys”, they are to a outside observer, NO DIFFERENT than a Roman Catholic Priest…

    You know, that’s a good point. We did not come out of a Baptist tradition, and yet this whole “mediator” thing was in place. Our elders watched over us, expecting to give an answer (for our salvation, for all I can figure, from their words and actions). And yet, what do *they* have to do with *our* salvation? We are to work out our (own) salvation with fear and trembling, or so I am moved to understand.

    As best I can tell, because the authoritarian elders claim they will give an account for your soul, it’s a way for them to get church members to *obey* and *submit*.

  163. @ Daisy:
    We got some of that harassment, and we left before church discipline could be brought against us, or at least a part of our family. We were just “lucky” that our church didn’t (at the time, at least — I have no idea if it is still the same now) consider “trying to leave” a reason for being put under church discipline. (And of course, if you’re under discipline, you shouldn’t be allowed to leave, until your “issues” are resolved. Right? Um, no.)

  164. refugee wrote:

    And yes, Gram3, I realize you’re only quoting what others have taught. Thank you again for shedding light on that verse about child-bearing in that recent thread.

    That’s a good thing. 🙂 As you probably remember, JS and I had a similar discussion where he suddenly departed after saying I said something I did not say. He never returned to that thread. The thing is that fallacious reasoning and prooftexting is very effective so long as people do not check out the facts. I should know because that’s exactly what I did for way too long. Not my problem, so not a problem. When I couldn’t ignore it any longer, I actually checked and tested and did the whole Berean thing and discovered it was a system built on supposition and tradition. Then I got busy because I had been deceived (good daughter of Eve that I am) and now I want to do my best to encourage my sisters to recognize their freedom in Christ and to encourage my brothers to re-think what they have been taught and have always assumed to be true.

  165. refugee wrote:

    That’s it, Daisy. There’s no hope for you, or for our eldest (who is a little younger than you, I think) who is as yet unmarried and has no prospects on the horizon. Perhaps we ought to send her out on the street… she can keep you company as you search for a sperm donor, the bearer and instrument of your salvation.

    Yep, I’m doomed to eternal torment, as I’ve never had a kid. I’m not going to be saved by child-bearing.

  166. @ refugee:
    Actually, it appeared that they thought the most hurtful thing they could do to us was to strike our names from the membership rolls. For part of our family, that was indeed hurtful. For the rest of us, it was more a matter of “Please don’t throw me in the brier patch, Brer Fox and Brer Bear!”

    What a relief it was to hear they’d washed their hands of us.

  167. refugee wrote:

    Well, actually, that is true. Let’s not forget that. I know I’ve heard some sad stories on survivor blogs from pastors who were abused as well. Some churches are just plain toxic.

    Oh, I know.

    It’s just grating when you’re on a blog that primarily supports pew sitters who’ve been abused by preachers and churches, and you get this really determined pro-preacher guy who keeps commenting “But #NotAllPreachers”
    or, “#ButWhatAboutAbusedPreachers” !

    There probably is already a blog or forum out there by ex-Preachers who were so fed up being abused by the lay persons. Some such preachers are now former Christians, claim to be atheists, and they join exChristian sites, or atheist sites. I do think their side is getting heard, but elsewhere.

    This is kind of like when women are discussing sexism and abuse against women in society and marriage, and how they’ve been mistreated by husbands and boyfriends or male employers, invariably, some MRA (men’s rights) guy shows up in the comments to keep arguing, “But #NotAllMen” and “society is so tough on men too, feel sorry for men.”

  168. refugee wrote:

    We did not come out of a Baptist tradition, and yet this whole “mediator” thing was in place.

    The guys at Voices do not realize that they are advocating for only one stream of Baptist thinking. That stream came from a particular segment of English Baptist thinking which arose in a hierarchical social structure. Hierarchy was normal in seventeenth century England and in the world generally. But the guys at Voices totally disregard the older Anabaptists and the way they conceived of the priesthood of the believer. The guys in seminary are being taught only one version of Baptist history by Wells, Nettles, and Haykin, among others.

  169. js wrote:

    Is there a place in the world for God-ordained leadership?

    Yes. It is called the “old covenant”. Now, believers are all to be priests in the Holy Priesthood with no need for a human mediator in the Body. And we are to develop our gifts and mature in Him. Some function to help that happen as SERVANTS whether teachers, pastors, etc. The authority in the Body of Christ IS Jesus Christ, Himself. All others are servants and they operate as a corporate body guided by the Holy Spirit. How else are people to grow? What on earth is the Holy Spirit for? To tell leaders what to do?

    The Body of Christ is to be different than secular government or even your secular place of employment. We are to be the light of the world.

    2 John 2

    “20 But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth.[e] 21 I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth. 22 Who is the liar? It is whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a person is the antichrist—denying the Father and the Son. 23 No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.

    24 As for you, see that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. 25 And this is what he promised us—eternal life.

    26 I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray. 27 As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit—just as it has taught you, remain in him.”

    Anyone who teaches there is a human mediator between a believer and Jesus Christ is not teaching truth. Remain in Him. Seek the Holy Spirit’s guidance.

  170. Gram3 wrote:

    Js wrote:

    They are stuck in a framework of “human mediation” as Leeman put it. There is only one Mediator, Christ Jesus, and there is only one Holy Spirit, not a bunch of self-appointed holy spirits who need to tell other people how to be holy.

    Why don’t you try addressing substantive points?

    Well, there are frameworks of “human mediation” IMO, though I don’t agree with Leeman’s application of this point in the local church. Goveernment authorities are mediators as well, as God bears His judgment through them.
    Parents to children would be one human mediator, for example. Parents are to care for children and nurture them. They are God’s appointed caregivers to their children and this is in some way a mediating position between Christ and the child, otherwise the command to bring up children in the nurture and instruction of the Lord would lose its meaning. Bringing them up implies a kind of leadership of them. This too is pleasing to the Lord according to Colossians 3, which says the motivation for a child’s obedience is in part because it is pleasing to the Lord. Of course this is not the same as Christ being our mediator to the Father in our salvation but these human relationships aren’t intended to usurp or replace the relationship we have with Christ they are intended to illustrate that relationship (as Paul says in Ephesians 5).

  171. @ Daisy:
    Yeah. I get your point. But (ah, I’m so good at coming up with “but”… uppity woman that I am) I can empathize even with those men you mentioned at the end of your comment, remembering the struggle someone close to us had to keep custody of his children and get supervised visits for them with his ex-wife, and not out of spite but out of real concern that they would suffer neglect, abuse, perhaps even death if their mother gained custody after their divorce.

    I don’t know how things are now, legally, but it used to be that mothers had a better chance of getting custody than fathers. Our friend, at least, had to jump through lots of expensive hoops (and employ private investigators) to prove his ex unfit.

  172. An Attorney wrote:

    Please put quote marks around “Christian”!!!!

    I don’t think I can. This stereotype about single women being a bunch of jezebels is commonplace among conservative evangelicals and Southern Baptists. It’s in all their advice articles, TV shows, warning Christian married men to stay away from single ladies. I think these are sincere Christian guys teaching this.

    Does the Bible teach that all single women are threats? No. But a lot of genuine Christians teach that they are.

    Many genuine Christians will defend the “Billy Graham rule” to the death (i.e., never, ever be left alone with a woman, especially not an unmarried one, because adultery is guaranteed to result – according to this line of thinking). You will even see a small number of regular Christian participants on this blog defend the Billy Graham rule at times.

  173. Jeffrey J Chalmers wrote:

    But, I can NOT get my hands/mind around the concept that Calvanista’s are advocating the concept/need/requirement of a “mediator

    It blows my mind it is opposite to everything the indwelling, Savior, Jesus Christ is about. But it is a natural progression to the insistence on elder led (rule) and top down governance of churches.

  174. b>dee wrote:

    For it’s one, two , three strikes your out….

    If we have many more stories like TVC (and I have one or two that I am working on to verify) they will strike out in the court of public opinion.

    Sing along with Mitch Miller, dating myself.
    You did a good job of staying on point and not getting them riled up so there would be an excuse to dismiss you.

  175. Lydia wrote:

    js wrote:

    Is there a place in the world for God-ordained leadership?

    Yes. It is called the “old covenant”.

    Well said.

  176. Lydia wrote:

    js wrote:

    Is there a place in the world for God-ordained leadership?

    Yes. It is called the “old covenant”. Now, believers are all to be priests in the Holy Priesthood with no need for a human mediator in the Body. And we are to develop our gifts and mature in Him. Some function to help that happen as SERVANTS whether teachers, pastors, etc. The authority in the Body of Christ IS Jesus Christ, Himself. All others are servants and they operate as a corporate body guided by the Holy Spirit. How else are people to grow? What on earth is the Holy Spirit for? To tell leaders what to do?

    The Body of Christ is to be different than secular government or even your secular place of employment. We are to be the light of the world.

    2 John 2

    “20 But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth.[e] 21 I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth. 22 Who is the liar? It is whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a person is the antichrist—denying the Father and the Son. 23 No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.

    24 As for you, see that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. 25 And this is what he promised us—eternal life.

    26 I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray. 27 As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit—just as it has taught you, remain in him.”

    Anyone who teaches there is a human mediator between a believer and Jesus Christ is not teaching truth. Remain in Him. Seek the Holy Spirit’s guidance.

    Was Paul a human mediator for Timothy? He clearly taught Timothy, mentored him, wrote him at least two letters, gave him specific commands, and did it all in the context of love. Paul mediated the love of Christ to Timothy by caring for him and nurturing him and by leading him, and he urges others in the body to similar relationships.

  177. @ js:
    Huh? I’d call Paul a “mentor” for Timothy, certainly. A “mediator”? In prayer, perhaps. But to extend it beyond that… I think you are misusing the term.

    Christ is our Mediator.

  178. js wrote:

    Was Paul a human mediator for Timothy?

    No, he was not.
    Mediator does not mean the same thing as teacher, influencer, or mentor.

    The Bible says there is only one mediator between God and humanity, and that would be Jesus Christ. Not apostle Paul or elders at your local church.

  179. Max wrote:

    The Devers’ model for church membership and discipline is being too easily adopted in New Calvinist ranks … it was not predestined to work.

    lol. Predestined not to work for long, at any rate. I do not understand why, as church membership continues to diminish, leaders take up such off-putting ideas. It’s like a clueless parent doubling/tripling down during an argument with a teenager. Counterproductive!

  180. Velour wrote:

    roebuck wrote:
    js wrote:
    roebuck wrote:
    Js wrote:
    If someone started a survivors blog for pastors they would get some serious hits.
    Oh please. The difference is that a ‘disciplinarian’ pastor and his sycophants can have a church member’s life ruined. A church member might be a PITA, but can’t have the pastor and his coterie shunned.
    Not saying that a pastor’s job is easy, just that your claim of symmetry in the relationship is bogus.
    I think you underestimate the power of a church to ruin a pastor’s life. This is especially true with smaller churches and smaller towns. The idea that every pastor has a coterie is false. There are very few pastors with such cover. The loudest and most influential are not by any means the majority. So when one of the great majority of pastors who is not particularly influential gets tangled in a mess (and we need to acknowledge that some congregations tend to be dysfunctional) the way he can be shunned and slandered is quite comparable to what can be done to church members and often over issues just as frivolous as some of the worst pastoral abuses of church discipline.
    We have been talking about large churches, with authoritarian pastors, very definitely posessing coteries, and their abuse of church discipline. Don’t change the subject.
    Thank you, Roebuck!
    And we have been talking about un-Biblical, authoritarian pastors destroying the lives and reputations of upstanding Christians for the slightest dissent, exercising inappropriate control over the lives of Believers, church leaders who have for all that they have decried the Roman Catholic Church set their church structure up EXACTLY like the RCC with the senior pastor crowned as “Pope” and the other elders as “Cardinals”, complete with excommunications and shunnings. They have brought a reproach upon the name of Christ, the cause of Christ, and The Gospel. Not even unbelievers subscribe to such wicked, evil practices and even unbelievers are horrified at these practices.
    Calvin was a murderer. You worship a man who actively harmed people? Well that’s the beginning of your problems. Calvin was an evil man. He did great evil. You have all become like the evil man that you have worshipped. Christ isn’t King; Calvin is King.
    The Apostle Paul on the other hand was a repentant murderer, who had been entirely transformed by Jesus Christ. Big difference.

    Wow….so Calvin was evil, rejected Jesus and therefore…not in the Presence now? didn’t accept

  181. Jay wrote:

    Velour wrote:

    roebuck wrote:
    js wrote:
    roebuck wrote:
    Js wrote:
    If someone started a survivors blog for pastors they would get some serious hits.
    Oh please. The difference is that a ‘disciplinarian’ pastor and his sycophants can have a church member’s life ruined. A church member might be a PITA, but can’t have the pastor and his coterie shunned.
    Not saying that a pastor’s job is easy, just that your claim of symmetry in the relationship is bogus.
    I think you underestimate the power of a church to ruin a pastor’s life. This is especially true with smaller churches and smaller towns. The idea that every pastor has a coterie is false. There are very few pastors with such cover. The loudest and most influential are not by any means the majority. So when one of the great majority of pastors who is not particularly influential gets tangled in a mess (and we need to acknowledge that some congregations tend to be dysfunctional) the way he can be shunned and slandered is quite comparable to what can be done to church members and often over issues just as frivolous as some of the worst pastoral abuses of church discipline.
    We have been talking about large churches, with authoritarian pastors, very definitely posessing coteries, and their abuse of church discipline. Don’t change the subject.
    Thank you, Roebuck!
    And we have been talking about un-Biblical, authoritarian pastors destroying the lives and reputations of upstanding Christians for the slightest dissent, exercising inappropriate control over the lives of Believers, church leaders who have for all that they have decried the Roman Catholic Church set their church structure up EXACTLY like the RCC with the senior pastor crowned as “Pope” and the other elders as “Cardinals”, complete with excommunications and shunnings. They have brought a reproach upon the name of Christ, the cause of Christ, and The Gospel. Not even unbelievers subscribe to such wicked, evil practices and even unbelievers are horrified at these practices.
    Calvin was a murderer. You worship a man who actively harmed people? Well that’s the beginning of your problems. Calvin was an evil man. He did great evil. You have all become like the evil man that you have worshipped. Christ isn’t King; Calvin is King.
    The Apostle Paul on the other hand was a repentant murderer, who had been entirely transformed by Jesus Christ. Big difference.

    Wow….so Calvin was evil, rejected Jesus and therefore…not in the Presence now? didn’t accept

    You aren’t troubled by Calvin’s life? I am. What decent person – unbeliever or Christian – wouldn’t be?

  182. Gram3 wrote:

    They [cats] are the majority there [in hell].

    Well, yes, but the road thence is paved by all the other cats who are queueing to get in.

  183. js wrote:

    Was Paul a human mediator for Timothy? He clearly taught Timothy, mentored him, wrote him at least two letters, gave him specific commands, and did it all in the context of love. Paul mediated the love of Christ to Timothy by caring for him and nurturing him and by leading him, and he urges others in the body to similar relationships.

    You are redifining the word ‘mediator’ from how it has been understood in a Christian (and secular) context for centuries.

  184. Bridget wrote:

    To me, it looks like elite leaders throwing a hissy fit because members of the body won’t bow down to the elitist leaders’ systems.

    Elite in power only. And even that has been given to them by those who freely follow, and can be easily taken back. That’s the uncomfortable reality for power-hungry spiritual leaders. In such precarious positions, hissy fits are ill-advised.

    I wish people would take back their power when they see such displays. I think the commenters made an excellent demonstration of doing that.

  185. Lydia wrote:

    Anyone who teaches there is a human mediator between a believer and Jesus Christ is not teaching truth.

    Actually, there are a lot of similarities between Calvinism and Catholicism in this regard. Calvin was a magisterial reformer, who relied on the strong arm of the State to enforce his theology in Geneva. Calvin was a mediator when it came dishing out sentences for “heretics”; the State carried out his orders. The Catholics were doing the same thing over in Rome. New Calvinists now exercise control by authoritarian elder-rule, rather than letting the free church operate as it should through spiritual gifts given to the whole Body of Christ.

    Christian pastors/teachers are to equip the saints to do the work of the ministry. They are not priests, who mediate between man and God. In the New Testament church, such leaders are not “ordained” by God; they are “gifted” by the Spirit in those offices. Calvinism drifts from Truth when it diminishes soul competency and priesthood of the individual believer. Whose job is the ministry? Every believer has a place!

    There appears to be a great mistrust by New Calvinist leadership in individual Christian experience, a believer’s personal encounter with the living Christ. The reformed mind leans more heavily on a set of doctrinal propositions rather than a direct experience of grace. That’s why you hear more preaching on “God”, rather than Jesus. You will never experience a “testimony time” at a New Calvinist church where the pastor calls on members to “Tell us what Jesus is doing in your life.” A complex systematic theology of unrevisable doctrine trumps a simple personal relationship with Christ in reformed works.

  186. Velour wrote:

    Jay wrote:
    Velour wrote:
    roebuck wrote:
    js wrote:
    roebuck wrote:
    Js wrote:
    If someone started a survivors blog for pastors they would get some serious hits.
    Oh please. The difference is that a ‘disciplinarian’ pastor and his sycophants can have a church member’s life ruined. A church member might be a PITA, but can’t have the pastor and his coterie shunned.
    Not saying that a pastor’s job is easy, just that your claim of symmetry in the relationship is bogus.
    I think you underestimate the power of a church to ruin a pastor’s life. This is especially true with smaller churches and smaller towns. The idea that every pastor has a coterie is false. There are very few pastors with such cover. The loudest and most influential are not by any means the majority. So when one of the great majority of pastors who is not particularly influential gets tangled in a mess (and we need to acknowledge that some congregations tend to be dysfunctional) the way he can be shunned and slandered is quite comparable to what can be done to church members and often over issues just as frivolous as some of the worst pastoral abuses of church discipline.
    We have been talking about large churches, with authoritarian pastors, very definitely posessing coteries, and their abuse of church discipline. Don’t change the subject.
    Thank you, Roebuck!
    And we have been talking about un-Biblical, authoritarian pastors destroying the lives and reputations of upstanding Christians for the slightest dissent, exercising inappropriate control over the lives of Believers, church leaders who have for all that they have decried the Roman Catholic Church set their church structure up EXACTLY like the RCC with the senior pastor crowned as “Pope” and the other elders as “Cardinals”, complete with excommunications and shunnings. They have brought a reproach upon the name of Christ, the cause of Christ, and The Gospel. Not even unbelievers subscribe to such wicked, evil practices and even unbelievers are horrified at these practices.
    Calvin was a murderer. You worship a man who actively harmed people? Well that’s the beginning of your problems. Calvin was an evil man. He did great evil. You have all become like the evil man that you have worshipped. Christ isn’t King; Calvin is King.
    The Apostle Paul on the other hand was a repentant murderer, who had been entirely transformed by Jesus Christ. Big difference.
    Wow….so Calvin was evil, rejected Jesus and therefore…not in the Presence now? didn’t accept
    You aren’t troubled by Calvin’s life? I am. What decent person – unbeliever or Christian – wouldn’t be?

    I’m merely pointing out that you are making a pretty strong judgement of a person who in his writings clearly claimed Jesus is the only way to salvation. Calvin may have even agreed with you that he was evil, as are we all without the transforming work of the Cross.

    I think it’s also pretty common we use our modern “lenses” when looking back at what people did centuries ago. (not to excuse any particular act or sin, but to not consider the role of the State in particular back then isn’t really fair) Was Calvin perfect? No… Was he a sinner? Yes. Did he call on Jesus? What do you think?

  187. Gram3 wrote:

    js wrote:

    That’s good enough for me and I think Paul got the gospel.

    I think that Paul plainly teaches that women are saved by bearing children. That is what he is clearly teaching in 1 Timothy 2:15. I think that every man who does not greet his brothers in Christ with a kiss is in rebellion against Paul’s clear commandment, and I further believe that those rebellious men have capitulated to the modern cultural attitudes of people who have rejected God’s good and beautiful design and order.

    I can play that game, too. Can you maintain your hermeneutic consistently?

    I think Paul teaches that women are saved through childbearing too, because that is what the text says. I admit freely that I don’t know what it means, and I have read the possible explanations (including yours). There are lots of things in the Bible I don’t fully understand, as is true of any Christian.

    I think Paul gave a command to the early church to greet one another. That he said with a holy kiss it is generally accepted that he used the culturally common way of greeting in the ancient world and still in some parts of the world today. I don’t remember Paul giving any ontological weight to the kiss greeting. Most Bible students understand that there is a core principle beneath the clear command which we are called to obey, which I am sure you know. Just as in Ephesians there are core principles for husbands and wives, parents and children which should be followed even if they will look a little different in today’s world than they would have looked in Paul’s world. ISTM Paul does give some ontological weight to the relationship in marriage between husband and wife, but I think the ontological basis is not creation but Christ.

  188. Jay wrote:

    Wow….so Calvin was evil, rejected Jesus and therefore…not in the Presence now? didn’t accept

    I stand by what I said: Calvin was an incredibly evil man and there is nothing heroic or admirable about him.

    Nice try, but I didn’t say anything about “rejected Jesus” or being in “the Presence now”, did I?

    I trust Jesus at His word when He said that many who claim to know Him in fact do not know Him and will not be in His Presence.

  189. Bridget wrote:

    js wrote:

    Was Paul a human mediator for Timothy? He clearly taught Timothy, mentored him, wrote him at least two letters, gave him specific commands, and did it all in the context of love. Paul mediated the love of Christ to Timothy by caring for him and nurturing him and by leading him, and he urges others in the body to similar relationships.

    You are redifining the word ‘mediator’ from how it has been understood in a Christian (and secular) context for centuries.

    I’m trying to learn. Are you all saying that the YRR folks really believe that church elders take the place of Christ as mediator or stand as co-mediators with Him? Do you have quotations or places I can find them because I would strongly disagree with that contention.

  190. lydia wrote:

    Why say he has good or bad intentions? We don’t know either way.

    I completely agree. Particularly regarding all forms of leadership, intentions are irrelevant. We evaluate words and actions. The road to hell is paved…, etc.

  191. Js wrote:

    The focus on tww is mostly on the abuses that flow from pulpit to the pew but there is certainly a strong tide in the other direction.

    May the flaw is in the system? With so much power and responsibility taken by, or given to a pastor it is ripe for abuse of the pastor or abuse by the pastor.

  192. Max wrote:

    Lydia wrote:

    Anyone who teaches there is a human mediator between a believer and Jesus Christ is not teaching truth.

    Actually, there are a lot of similarities between Calvinism and Catholicism in this regard. Calvin was a magisterial reformer, who relied on the strong arm of the State to enforce his theology in Geneva. Calvin was a mediator when it came dishing out sentences for “heretics”; the State carried out his orders. The Catholics were doing the same thing over in Rome. New Calvinists now exercise control by authoritarian elder-rule, rather than letting the free church operate as it should through spiritual gifts given to the whole Body of Christ.

    Christian pastors/teachers are to equip the saints to do the work of the ministry. They are not priests, who mediate between man and God. In the New Testament church, such leaders are not “ordained” by God; they are “gifted” by the Spirit in those offices. Calvinism drifts from Truth when it diminishes soul competency and priesthood of the individual believer. Whose job is the ministry? Every believer has a place!

    There appears to be a great mistrust by New Calvinist leadership in individual Christian experience, a believer’s personal encounter with the living Christ. The reformed mind leans more heavily on a set of doctrinal propositions rather than a direct experience of grace. That’s why you hear more preaching on “God”, rather than Jesus. You will never experience a “testimony time” at a New Calvinist church where the pastor calls on members to “Tell us what Jesus is doing in your life.” A complex systematic theology of unrevisable doctrine trumps a simple personal relationship with Christ in reformed works.

    When a congregation, acting in obedience to Matthew 18 and 1 Corinthians 5, by mutual decision, excludes someone from the local church, are you saying they are acting as sinful mediators between the believer and Christ? The congregation is individual Christians acting collectively to exclude a member. They are saying by this action, even when they have a desire for repentance and restoration, that they do not believe this person belongs in the fellowship of believers. I think the congregation can’t make an ultimate judgment about the person’s soul but they can and in rare case should make an decision to exclude one from fellowship.

    For example, if you had an unrepentant Jordan Root in your congregation, how would your congregation deal with him in a way that did not make you into sinful mediators?

  193. Velour wrote:

    *I was ordered in to elders’ meetings and told that I was *destined for hell* for bringing up the issue of child safety. I had discovered a Megan’s List sex offender in our midst while doing research for a prosecutor about another sex offender.

    Thank you for standing up to those neandrathals. The church needs more people like you.

  194. js wrote:

    Was Paul a human mediator for Timothy? He clearly taught Timothy, mentored him, wrote him at least two letters, gave him specific commands, and did it all in the context of love. Paul mediated the love of Christ to Timothy by caring for him and nurturing him and by leading him, and he urges others in the body to similar relationships.

    This comment is not addressed to JS but rather I am using something JS said as an example of something we were all talking about not too long ago, the feminization of church, using the term to mean ‘having a feminine feel’ as opposed to a different way to use the term as confined to women priests.

    The way JS describes Paul’s relationship to Timothy it sounds like a mother/child relationship. ‘Did it all in the context of love’; ‘mediated…love…’; ‘caring for him’ ; ‘nurturing him’ This is how one talks about mothering. Or nursing; they taught us that approach in nurses’ training back in the day. TLC–tender loving care. Sure, for the sick and the elderly and the child. But the word for what JS is saying is ‘mothering’ not ‘mediating’. Except that when I read Paul this is not the context or the personality which comes to mind.

    Now before somebody says that fathering might look the same way, sure, when the kids are little, but not once they are grown men. Timothy was a grown man-young but grown. Why would Paul, that would be the Paul who apparently would take on all comers if he had to, Paul who had a hard time forgiving John Mark was it? for abandoning the mission, treat a grown man (Timothy) like a mother treats a child?

    Paul did not ‘mediate’. There is one mediator between God and man, and it is not Paul.

    Paul again and again defended his claim to apostleship, not a claim to mothering. Those are different callings. Paul exercised his calling as an apostle.

    And while I am on the subject, Jesus was not some pot smoking European who struggled to grow a beard as some in Hollywood may think from time to time. It is not necessary to redefine apostleship to look like mothering in order for the major players to imitators of Christ.

  195. js wrote:

    Bridget wrote:

    js wrote:

    Was Paul a human mediator for Timothy? He clearly taught Timothy, mentored him, wrote him at least two letters, gave him specific commands, and did it all in the context of love. Paul mediated the love of Christ to Timothy by caring for him and nurturing him and by leading him, and he urges others in the body to similar relationships.

    You are redifining the word ‘mediator’ from how it has been understood in a Christian (and secular) context for centuries.

    I’m trying to learn. Are you all saying that the YRR folks really believe that church elders take the place of Christ as mediator or stand as co-mediators with Him? Do you have quotations or places I can find them because I would strongly disagree with that contention.

    Hmmmm…from what you’ve claimed you seem to know a lot about Christian blogs. And you are a YRR defender. You seem computer literate. Why not take a break from The Wartburg Watch and go do your research about the YRR’s claims and Roman Catholic Church structure, with the local senior pastor appointed as “Pope” and the other elders as “Cardinals”, complete with excommunication and shunnings.

  196. Bill M wrote:

    Js wrote:

    The focus on tww is mostly on the abuses that flow from pulpit to the pew but there is certainly a strong tide in the other direction.

    May the flaw is in the system? With so much power and responsibility taken by, or given to a pastor it is ripe for abuse of the pastor or abuse by the pastor.

    My personal opinion is that abuse exists wherever humans gather in groups in any sustained way and that it is not endemic to one type of system over another. The types of abuses may change but the human struggle for power and control is as old as Eden.

  197. Jay wrote:

    Velour wrote:
    Jay wrote:
    Velour wrote:
    roebuck wrote:
    js wrote:
    roebuck wrote:
    Js wrote:
    If someone started a survivors blog for pastors they would get some serious hits.
    Oh please. The difference is that a ‘disciplinarian’ pastor and his sycophants can have a church member’s life ruined. A church member might be a PITA, but can’t have the pastor and his coterie shunned.
    Not saying that a pastor’s job is easy, just that your claim of symmetry in the relationship is bogus.
    I think you underestimate the power of a church to ruin a pastor’s life. This is especially true with smaller churches and smaller towns. The idea that every pastor has a coterie is false. There are very few pastors with such cover. The loudest and most influential are not by any means the majority. So when one of the great majority of pastors who is not particularly influential gets tangled in a mess (and we need to acknowledge that some congregations tend to be dysfunctional) the way he can be shunned and slandered is quite comparable to what can be done to church members and often over issues just as frivolous as some of the worst pastoral abuses of church discipline.
    We have been talking about large churches, with authoritarian pastors, very definitely posessing coteries, and their abuse of church discipline. Don’t change the subject.
    Thank you, Roebuck!
    And we have been talking about un-Biblical, authoritarian pastors destroying the lives and reputations of upstanding Christians for the slightest dissent, exercising inappropriate control over the lives of Believers, church leaders who have for all that they have decried the Roman Catholic Church set their church structure up EXACTLY like the RCC with the senior pastor crowned as “Pope” and the other elders as “Cardinals”, complete with excommunications and shunnings. They have brought a reproach upon the name of Christ, the cause of Christ, and The Gospel. Not even unbelievers subscribe to such wicked, evil practices and even unbelievers are horrified at these practices.
    Calvin was a murderer. You worship a man who actively harmed people? Well that’s the beginning of your problems. Calvin was an evil man. He did great evil. You have all become like the evil man that you have worshipped. Christ isn’t King; Calvin is King.
    The Apostle Paul on the other hand was a repentant murderer, who had been entirely transformed by Jesus Christ. Big difference.
    Wow….so Calvin was evil, rejected Jesus and therefore…not in the Presence now? didn’t accept
    You aren’t troubled by Calvin’s life? I am. What decent person – unbeliever or Christian – wouldn’t be?
    I’m merely pointing out that you are making a pretty strong judgement of a person who in his writings clearly claimed Jesus is the only way to salvation. Calvin may have even agreed with you that he was evil, as are we all without the transforming work of the Cross.
    I think it’s also pretty common we use our modern “lenses” when looking back at what people did centuries ago. (not to excuse any particular act or sin, but to not consider the role of the State in particular back then isn’t really fair) Was Calvin perfect? No… Was he a sinner? Yes. Did he call on Jesus? What do you think?

    I think people make to much of a big deal out of Calvin, and I think there is no excuse fo using the State to carry out your excommunication, and subsequent death, of an individual. I also do not think he can be excused because it was a different time. The “American experience” of “religious freedom” was the result of struggles going back centuries if not 1,000’s of years. To say it was a “different time” discounts the lives lost 100’s of years before Calvin by people wanting religious freedom (or freedom from religion). I for one, admire all of the people that died for religious freedom that I enjoy in America today, and look down on people of the past that prevent religious freedom!

  198. okrapod wrote:

    js wrote:

    Was Paul a human mediator for Timothy? He clearly taught Timothy, mentored him, wrote him at least two letters, gave him specific commands, and did it all in the context of love. Paul mediated the love of Christ to Timothy by caring for him and nurturing him and by leading him, and he urges others in the body to similar relationships.

    This comment is not addressed to JS but rather I am using something JS said as an example of something we were all talking about not too long ago, the feminization of church, using the term to mean ‘having a feminine feel’ as opposed to a different way to use the term as confined to women priests.

    The way JS describes Paul’s relationship to Timothy it sounds like a mother/child relationship. ‘Did it all in the context of love’; ‘mediated…love…’; ‘caring for him’ ; ‘nurturing him’ This is how one talks about mothering. Or nursing; they taught us that approach in nurses’ training back in the day. TLC–tender loving care. Sure, for the sick and the elderly and the child. But the word for what JS is saying is ‘mothering’ not ‘mediating’. Except that when I read Paul this is not the context or the personality which comes to mind.

    Now before somebody says that fathering might look the same way, sure, when the kids are little, but not once they are grown men. Timothy was a grown man-young but grown. Why would Paul, that would be the Paul who apparently would take on all comers if he had to, Paul who had a hard time forgiving John Mark was it? for abandoning the mission, treat a grown man (Timothy) like a mother treats a child?

    Paul did not ‘mediate’. There is one mediator between God and man, and it is not Paul.

    Paul again and again defended his claim to apostleship, not a claim to mothering. Those are different callings. Paul exercised his calling as an apostle.

    And while I am on the subject, Jesus was not some pot smoking European who struggled to grow a beard as some in Hollywood may think from time to time. It is not necessary to redefine apostleship to look like mothering in order for the major players to imitators of Christ.

    I understand this was not addressed directly to me but my simple answer to this is that Paul does deal with Timothy in a somewhat nurturing way because it seems Timothy was timid and young (see 1 Timothy 1:7; 4:12) and in need of encouragement. Paul seems to me to adapt his approach to people based on their place in their life with Christ and the seriousness of the issues he is dealing with in ministry.

  199. @ js:
    You do not know the context of Paul’s remajs wrote:

    I think Paul teaches that women are saved through childbearing too, because that is what the text says. I admit freely that I don’t know what it means, and I have read the possible explanations (including yours). There are lots of things in the Bible I don’t fully understand, as is true of any Christian.

    You do not know the context of Paul’s remark. What if he were quoting something that had been written to him by the church to which he was writing. The statement was common in Ephesus, made by priestesses of Artemis. So Paul was reacting to the heresy, not advocating it. Almost all of our translations default to the mistranslations and misunderstandings of the KJV, which was not made from the Greek or Hebrew, etc., but from the Latin. So mistakes were compounded on top of other mistakes.

    It is also the case the the Greek in the oldest available texts can be translated that God will preserve the soul of the women through the time when she gives birth, not because she gave birth! The word can mean through in a time since rather than a cause sense!

  200. js wrote:

    Bill M wrote:
    Js wrote:
    The focus on tww is mostly on the abuses that flow from pulpit to the pew but there is certainly a strong tide in the other direction.
    May the flaw is in the system? With so much power and responsibility taken by, or given to a pastor it is ripe for abuse of the pastor or abuse by the pastor.
    My personal opinion is that abuse exists wherever humans gather in groups in any sustained way and that it is not endemic to one type of system over another. The types of abuses may change but the human struggle for power and control is as old as Eden.

    Amen!!

  201. Velour wrote:

    Jay wrote:
    Wow….so Calvin was evil, rejected Jesus and therefore…not in the Presence now? didn’t accept
    I stand by what I said: Calvin was an incredibly evil man and there is nothing heroic or admirable about him.
    Nice try, but I didn’t say anything about “rejected Jesus” or being in “the Presence now”, did I?
    I trust Jesus at His word when He said that many who claim to know Him in fact do not know Him and will not be in His Presence.

    Peace, brother! (sister?) I was merely pointing out the most probable implication of your statement “Calvin was evil”, asking if *you* thought Calvin was not in the Presence now. I’m not even arguing one way or the other, so much as cautioning against judging. Mote and beam…I’ve said this before in comments here, I see some folks that are really ANGRY, many rightfully so, and then they level harsh judgments against those with whom they vehemently disagree.

    Maybe those folks deserve the criticism. But certainly they deserve our love and prayers, ESPECIALLY if they are acting in an (ultimately) self-destructive manner that harms others. (Not that destructive behavior should be tolerated. mind you)

    Look, ultimately I’m concerned for anyone that has been harmed by spectacularly bad theology, bad practice, or good intentions gone to hell. Just don’t become that which you hate.

  202. js wrote:

    They are saying by this action, even when they have a desire for repentance and restoration, that they do not believe this person belongs in the fellowship of believers. I think the congregation can’t make an ultimate judgment about the person’s soul but they can and in rare case should make an decision to exclude one from fellowship

    Nonsense. That’s not’s what is happening at all in these NeoCal churches, which operate like gangs. You have the senior pastor in the role of Pope/Chief Gossip/Bully and the elders in the roles of Cardinals/Assistant Gossips/Assistant Bullies. Anything that they don’t *like*, any opposition, any reasonable dissent gets an upstanding Christian pronounced as *a sinner* and *in rebellion* and *destined* for very, very, very hot place. (I am not writing that word now so my comment doesn’t go into moderation.)

    The good Christian is then gossiped about before the entire church, ordered to be excommunicated and shunned.

    Why I was *keyed out* (Gram3’s saying for excommunication/shunning) of my church for – brace yourself – the *sin* of wanting to protect our church’s children from a convicted sex offender on Megan’s List, a felon, who had served prison time, and who had a supervising law enforcement agency. The pastors/elders gave him special privileges, membership, and positions of leadership/trust without ever telling all church members and adults that he was a sex offender.

    I saw the sex offender run his hands through the hair of my friends’ young son, the parents had no clue he was a sex offender!!!

  203. Max wrote:

    Lydia wrote:

    You will never experience a “testimony time” at a New Calvinist church where the pastor calls on members to “Tell us what Jesus is doing in your life.” A complex systematic theology of unrevisable doctrine trumps a simple personal relationship with Christ in reformed works.

    Actually, our reformed leaning church has a testimony time at least quarterly in the morning service. The people here read MacArthur and Piper and listen to Chandler and Mohler but don’t believe they are the voice of God and they still believe God is at work in all of our lives and we all have things of value to share. And yes, even women can share their experiences in the assembly (gasp).

  204. Jeffrey J Chalmers wrote:

    But, I can NOT get my hands/mind around the concept that Calvanista’s are advocating the concept/need/requirement of a “mediator”, What?

    The Village Church’s “Church Discipline Guidelines” are on their website. This is what they say about sanctification: “The Lord created the method of church discipline as His intended means of sanctifying the church and her individual members. This is how he intends to sanctify His people and therefore failure on our part to carry out his desires is decidedly unloving.”

    They do concede elsewhere in the document that the Holy Spirit can do some of the work of sanctification without them.

  205. Nick Bulbeck wrote:

    David wrote:

    I’m truly delighted that this stream doesn’t begin with an egotistical “First”.

    205th !!!!

    I know. He doesn’t realize that we award prizes like in other races. Why, I have earned an Aluminum medal for placing 4th here on a Wartburg Watch post and I cherish it dearly.

    Nick, go ahead and pick something off the Periodic Table for #205 (but not too expensive).

  206. @ Gram3:
    That would be because Millers basic approach would be akin to that of Pravda.

    Notice he accuses legitimate questions of being “uncivil” based on his bias.

    Would imagine 40% of attempted dialogue on that rag never sees light of day.

  207. An Attorney wrote:

    @ js:
    You do not know the context of Paul’s remajs wrote:

    I think Paul teaches that women are saved through childbearing too, because that is what the text says. I admit freely that I don’t know what it means, and I have read the possible explanations (including yours). There are lots of things in the Bible I don’t fully understand, as is true of any Christian.

    You do not know the context of Paul’s remark. What if he were quoting something that had been written to him by the church to which he was writing. The statement was common in Ephesus, made by priestesses of Artemis. So Paul was reacting to the heresy, not advocating it. Almost all of our translations default to the mistranslations and misunderstandings of the KJV, which was not made from the Greek or Hebrew, etc., but from the Latin. So mistakes were compounded on top of other mistakes.

    It is also the case the the Greek in the oldest available texts can be translated that God will preserve the soul of the women through the time when she gives birth, not because she gave birth! The word can mean through in a time since rather than a cause sense!

    But is this verse the linchpin on which everything holds together? Regardless of whether your interpretation of this verse is right or not (and there are other substantive interpretations out there) I don’t need 1 Timothy 2:15 to prove anything about roles in marriage. I do want to understand it, so I am will keep studying (including considering what you have shared here) but I do not see it as the key idea on which everything hangs. And if complementarians are out there who do, I think they are on very shaky ground as it is a sound principle not to make heavily disputed passages the cornerstones of doctrine without good reason.

  208. Jay wrote:

    Velour wrote:

    Jay wrote:
    Wow….so Calvin was evil, rejected Jesus and therefore…not in the Presence now? didn’t accept
    I stand by what I said: Calvin was an incredibly evil man and there is nothing heroic or admirable about him.
    Nice try, but I didn’t say anything about “rejected Jesus” or being in “the Presence now”, did I?
    I trust Jesus at His word when He said that many who claim to know Him in fact do not know Him and will not be in His Presence.

    Peace, brother! (sister?) I was merely pointing out the most probable implication of your statement “Calvin was evil”, asking if *you* thought Calvin was not in the Presence now. I’m not even arguing one way or the other, so much as cautioning against judging. Mote and beam…I’ve said this before in comments here, I see some folks that are really ANGRY, many rightfully so, and then they level harsh judgments against those with whom they vehemently disagree.

    Maybe those folks deserve the criticism. But certainly they deserve our love and prayers, ESPECIALLY if they are acting in an (ultimately) self-destructive manner that harms others. (Not that destructive behavior should be tolerated. mind you)

    Look, ultimately I’m concerned for anyone that has been harmed by spectacularly bad theology, bad practice, or good intentions gone to hell. Just don’t become that which you hate.

    Don’t become what you admire. Evaluate.

  209. JohnD wrote:

    Jeffrey J Chalmers wrote:

    But, I can NOT get my hands/mind around the concept that Calvanista’s are advocating the concept/need/requirement of a “mediator”, What?

    The Village Church’s “Church Discipline Guidelines” are on their website. This is what they say about sanctification: “The Lord created the method of church discipline as His intended means of sanctifying the church and her individual members. This is how he intends to sanctify His people and therefore failure on our part to carry out his desires is decidedly unloving.”

    They do concede elsewhere in the document that the Holy Spirit can do some of the work of sanctification without them.

    The first person who I saw get excommunicated and shunned at my former NeoCal church was one of Pastor John MacArthur’s long-time, close, personal friends – a doctor. The doctor’s “crime”? He disagreed in private with how the pastors/elders were running the church and based it on The Bible. The doctor was hauled into meetings and screamed at. The senior pastor/thug/bully then ordered that the entire church not talk to the doctor any more and that he was being excommunicated and shunned. We were told he most likely *wasn’t saved*. We were told by the senior pastor to *pray for [the doctor’s] wife.*

    Pastor John MacArthur was outraged that one of his oldest friends had been maligned, lied about, and excommunicated and shunned at another California church.

    When I spoke to the doctor’s wife after I left that church she said that she’d always disliked the senior pastor and elders, she had disliked the church, she had thought there was something terribly wrong with it, and she had warned her husband that they shouldn’t go there.

    Imagine if the senior pastor had told the entire church membership what the doctor’s wife really thought of him and the elders?

  210. Scott wrote:

    @ Gram3:
    That would be because Millers basic approach would be akin to that of Pravda.

    Notice he accuses legitimate questions of being “uncivil” based on his bias.

    Would imagine 40% of attempted dialogue on that rag never sees light of day.

    Miller has never posted my two comments on this story. Pravda is right. A bunch of spineless cowards over there at SBC Voices. (No wonder the SBC is losing so many long-time Christians as members. They don’t want to listen to problems and input from members.)

  211. Todd Wilhelm wrote:

    The Shepherding movement began in 1974 and ended in 1990 with the declaration of Bob Mumford, on the cover of “Ministries” magazine, that “Discipleship was wrong. I repent. I ask forgiveness.”
    The movement had gained a reputation as exhibiting abusive and controlling behaviour through its emphasis on obedience to one’s personal shepherd.
    In an editorial entitled “Of Shepherds, Fiefs, and the Flock” the editors of Christianity Today wrote concerning the Shepherding movement that, “The temptation to control people is often Christianized by spiritual strong men who present a benign persona.”
    In a 1985 article titled “Disciple Abuse” (Discipleship Journal, Issue Thirty) Gordon MacDonald wrote, “Abusive disciplemaking begins when someone seeks people with the conscious or unconscious aim not of growing or leading them, but of controlling them. Sadly, this can be — and often is — effectively done in the name of discipling. The extremity of this tendency is cultism”
    Fast forward to today and we have the internet savvy 9Marx para-church organization pushing their philosophy of church membership and church discipline mainly through the efforts of Mark Dever and Jonathan Leeman. In my opinion what they are selling is a dressed up version of what the Shepherding movement was selling back in the ’70’s, complete with numerous casualties strewn in their wake.
    I only hope we do not have to wait 16 years for Dever and Leeman to have their “Mumford moment.”

    Ah….the NeoCals are a stubborn lot and won’t surrender to their pet doct…ah, pet peeves too quickly. The whole movement may eventually go down in flames, but not without a lot of collateral damage. Of course, they seem to be all for some collateral damage from what I’ve read over there at the Voices. The leader of the cult I used to belong to justified people being hurt and mistreated with the expression: “There are casualties in all wars.” Yeah, nice and compassionate there, as long as you aren’t one of them.
    I’m quite familiar with the likes of the shepherding movement having experienced its effects in that Christian cult – although we never labeled it as the “Shepherding Movement.” The results were the same: DEVASTATING. So many lives harmed in the name of Jesus. My husband and I escaped as the control became increasingly unbearable – having to openly confess sins at meetings, hand in our pay checks and get and receive a puny *allowance,* attendance required at meetings that lasted till 1 a.m., being called to account publicly regarding how many people you “led to Jesus,” being told living communally shows deeper commitment to Jesus than living in a home of your own, believing we were more faithful and discerning than all those other “Laodicean” Christians out there – and this is just the tip of the ice berg!

  212. Velour wrote:

    Even conservative Christian men that I know in Europe, elders in their churches for more than 40 years, have said that something terrible has happened to the American church and it has more in common with radical Islam’s authoritarian structure than with our freedom in Christ.

    I did not know that. Thanks, Velour.

  213. Velour wrote:

    Jay wrote:
    Velour wrote:
    Jay wrote:
    Wow….so Calvin was evil, rejected Jesus and therefore…not in the Presence now? didn’t accept
    I stand by what I said: Calvin was an incredibly evil man and there is nothing heroic or admirable about him.
    Nice try, but I didn’t say anything about “rejected Jesus” or being in “the Presence now”, did I?
    I trust Jesus at His word when He said that many who claim to know Him in fact do not know Him and will not be in His Presence.
    Peace, brother! (sister?) I was merely pointing out the most probable implication of your statement “Calvin was evil”, asking if *you* thought Calvin was not in the Presence now. I’m not even arguing one way or the other, so much as cautioning against judging. Mote and beam…I’ve said this before in comments here, I see some folks that are really ANGRY, many rightfully so, and then they level harsh judgments against those with whom they vehemently disagree.
    Maybe those folks deserve the criticism. But certainly they deserve our love and prayers, ESPECIALLY if they are acting in an (ultimately) self-destructive manner that harms others. (Not that destructive behavior should be tolerated. mind you)
    Look, ultimately I’m concerned for anyone that has been harmed by spectacularly bad theology, bad practice, or good intentions gone to hell. Just don’t become that which you hate.
    Don’t become what you admire. Evaluate.

    I’m a Presbyterian, and while we hew to the older Reformed doctrine quite a bit, there is no genuflecting to a picture of John Calvin in the sanctuary. 😉

  214. js wrote:

    When a congregation, acting in obedience to Matthew 18 and 1 Corinthians 5

    JS, if you’ve followed various TWW posts, the concern is not with congregational governance (the NT model), but with plurality of elders polity. New Calvinist churches operate via authoritarian elder-rule in which they invite the congregation to vote on things like the color of the carpet, not member discipline. The recent error at TVC in regard to the discipline of Karen Hinkley rested in the hands of the lead pastor and his elder team, not the congregation. I’m aware of a NC church action in my vicinity that resulted in shunning of an entire family following an elder-only meeting, after the father of that family questioned the “lead” pastor’s teaching in a certain area. The word filtered through the church (most likely via the small group leadership) to avoid the shunned folks. Certainly got the attention of everybody else, lest their names also end up on the cast-out roll. I’m so glad my name is written in Heaven when I hear stuff like this.

  215. Velour wrote:

    JohnD wrote:
    Jeffrey J Chalmers wrote:
    But, I can NOT get my hands/mind around the concept that Calvanista’s are advocating the concept/need/requirement of a “mediator”, What?
    The Village Church’s “Church Discipline Guidelines” are on their website. This is what they say about sanctification: “The Lord created the method of church discipline as His intended means of sanctifying the church and her individual members. This is how he intends to sanctify His people and therefore failure on our part to carry out his desires is decidedly unloving.”
    They do concede elsewhere in the document that the Holy Spirit can do some of the work of sanctification without them.
    The first person who I saw get excommunicated and shunned at my former NeoCal church was one of Pastor John MacArthur’s long-time, close, personal friends – a doctor. The doctor’s “crime”? He disagreed in private with how the pastors/elders were running the church and based it on The Bible. The doctor was hauled into meetings and screamed at. The senior pastor/thug/bully then ordered that the entire church not talk to the doctor any more and that he was being excommunicated and shunned. We were told he most likely *wasn’t saved*. We were told by the senior pastor to *pray for [the doctor’s] wife.*
    Pastor John MacArthur was outraged that one of his oldest friends had been maligned, lied about, and excommunicated and shunned at another California church.
    When I spoke to the doctor’s wife after I left that church she said that she’d always disliked the senior pastor and elders, she had disliked the church, she had thought there was something terribly wrong with it, and she had warned her husband that they shouldn’t go there.
    Imagine if the senior pastor had told the entire church membership what the doctor’s wife really thought of him and the elders?

    I also wanted to say, Velour, that what happened at your former church is completely insane. I honestly had not heard of this “new” practice of excommunication/shunning until I started reading this blog. It’s as unbiblical now as it was when it was first challenged some centuries back.

  216. Jeffrey J Chalmers wrote:

    I’m merely pointing out that you are making a pretty strong judgement of a person who in his writings clearly claimed Jesus is the only way to salvation. Calvin may have even agreed with you that he was evil, as are we all without the transforming work of the Cross.
    I think it’s also pretty common we use our modern “lenses” when looking back at what people did centuries ago. (not to excuse any particular act or sin, but to not consider the role of the State in particular back then isn’t really fair) Was Calvin perfect? No… Was he a sinner? Yes. Did he call on Jesus? What do you think?

    Who cares what Calvin wrote and professed on paper? He didn’t live it out in his life. He was evil. Calvin didn’t adhere to the standard – the love – that Jesus commanded of us. This is the *standard* the Lord called us to, it has nothing to do with modern standards.

    How can you minimize the great evil that Calvin perpetrated on other peoples’ lives and mitigate it with the trite words/sin leveling about we’re all sinners.

    Calvin destroyed peoples’ lives. That is not laughable. That is not The Gospel. He was just a clanging bell.

  217. okrapod wrote:

    Now before somebody says that fathering might look the same way, sure, when the kids are little, but not once they are grown men.

    For that matter, mothering a grown man is different than mothering a male child as well.

  218. js wrote:

    Paul does deal with Timothy in a somewhat nurturing way because it seems Timothy was timid and young (see 1 Timothy 1:7; 4:12) and in need of encouragement.

    I am assuming that you meant 2Timothy 1:7.

    7 for God did not give us a spirit of timidity but a spirit of power and love and self-control. (RSV)

    7 for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control. (ESV)

    And no, I do not gather from this that Timothy was fearful/timid or powerless or hateful or out of control. That is a relief, because Paul entrusted him with a responsible job. It would be a shame to have to think that he passed responsibility on to somebody who was not ready to handle it.

    I can see that some of the leadership we have been talking about might do that, appoint young and immature and incompetent young guys beyond their level of capability. But no, the bible does not say that Paul did that.

  219. Bridget wrote:

    For that matter, mothering a grown man is different than mothering a male child as well.

    Indeed so. My youngest is a 45 year old male–whole different ball game.

  220. Velour wrote:

    How can you minimize the great evil that Calvin perpetrated on other peoples’ lives and mitigate it with the trite words/sin leveling about we’re all sinners.

    Once the core axiom becomes “Calvin Can Do No Wrong”, all other reality must bend (or be broken) to fit.

    You see exactly the same behavior among the True Believers in L Ron Hubbard or Ayn Rand.

  221. lydia wrote:

    @ Janet Varin:
    Janet, Miller says in comments there he believes Leeman/9 Marx have “good intentions”. That is a very typical misdirection.
    Their ” intentions” don’t matter a bit and are a blackhole. The only things that matter are words/teaching and actions/patterns of behaviour. I can say my intentions are always good and behave speak the opposite of that declaration. What then?
    .their entire system of church discipline is based on human authority in the Body. If they can get you to agree with that premise then it becomes about “intentions” and assuring people they are good guys with lapses in judgement. Sounds benigh until we fosus on the cruelty done to their victims. In effect, they lack character and wisdom.
    They would love for our focus to be on good intentions so we do not analyze the teaching or behavior.

    Oh yeah, I know about good intentions as well. In that Christian cult, we had what was called “The Six Steps of Love” which was supposed to guide us in our relationships and dealings with others. You can imagine how that turned out.

  222. Max wrote:

    Actually, there are a lot of similarities between Calvinism and Catholicism in this regard. Calvin was a magisterial reformer, who relied on the strong arm of the State to enforce his theology in Geneva. Calvin was a mediator when it came dishing out sentences for “heretics”; the State carried out his orders. The Catholics were doing the same thing over in Rome.

    I would like to point out that the RCC finally learned their lesson about relying on or becoming “The Strong Arm of the State to enforce theology”. And the corruption it breeds at the top.

    The Calvinists have yet to learn it.

  223. Patrice wrote:

    Velour wrote:
    Even conservative Christian men that I know in Europe, elders in their churches for more than 40 years, have said that something terrible has happened to the American church and it has more in common with radical Islam’s authoritarian structure than with our freedom in Christ.
    I did not know that. Thanks, Velour.

    Yep, American Evangelicalism looks a bit wacky to Christians outside the U.S.

  224. Bridget wrote:

    js wrote:

    Was Paul a human mediator for Timothy? He clearly taught Timothy, mentored him, wrote him at least two letters, gave him specific commands, and did it all in the context of love. Paul mediated the love of Christ to Timothy by caring for him and nurturing him and by leading him, and he urges others in the body to similar relationships.

    You are redifining the word ‘mediator’ from how it has been understood in a Christian (and secular) context for centuries.

    My Dear Wormwood:
    I refer you to my previous epistle, specifically the part about redefining words into their “diabolical meanings”.
    Your Ravenously Affectionate Uncle,
    Screwtape

  225. @ js:
    Exactly how is Christ mediated to an adult female by a male in marriage and to adult males and females by a clergyman in the church? Where is this mediation found?

    In the case of children, parents are there to administer the “law” due to the child’s immaturity emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually. When the child is in Christ, the parents take the “role” of a teacher and not a mediator.

    In the case of human government, again the governing authorities act as God’s agents because, again, the law must be applied to those who are not mature or who are not governed by the law of Christ.

    Your analogies fail. I’m surprised you omitted slaves and masters. Females are not children, and adults who are in Christ do not need a mediator other than Christ.

  226. roebuck wrote:

    Velour wrote:

    Why, I have earned an Aluminum medal

    (That’s Aluminium to you, Nick)

    And before the late 19th Century (when they hit on how to refine it out of bauxite ore), aluminum was much more valuable than gold. Back then, Aluminum would have been First Place and Gold only second.

  227. Velour wrote:

    Jeffrey J Chalmers wrote:
    I’m merely pointing out that you are making a pretty strong judgement of a person who in his writings clearly claimed Jesus is the only way to salvation. Calvin may have even agreed with you that he was evil, as are we all without the transforming work of the Cross.
    I think it’s also pretty common we use our modern “lenses” when looking back at what people did centuries ago. (not to excuse any particular act or sin, but to not consider the role of the State in particular back then isn’t really fair) Was Calvin perfect? No… Was he a sinner? Yes. Did he call on Jesus? What do you think?
    Who cares what Calvin wrote and professed on paper? He didn’t live it out in his life. He was evil. Calvin didn’t adhere to the standard – the love – that Jesus commanded of us. This is the *standard* the Lord called us to, it has nothing to do with modern standards.
    How can you minimize the great evil that Calvin perpetrated on other peoples’ lives and mitigate it with the trite words/sin leveling about we’re all sinners.
    Calvin destroyed peoples’ lives. That is not laughable. That is not The Gospel. He was just a clanging bell.

    I will merely state that there seems to be some difference of opinion on the topic of whether Calvin was a raging sociopath and leave it at that.

  228. refugee wrote:

    @ js:
    Huh? I’d call Paul a “mentor” for Timothy, certainly. A “mediator”? In prayer, perhaps. But to extend it beyond that… I think you are misusing the term.
    Christ is our Mediator.

    Exactly. Teachers are not mediators. They are teachers.

  229. dee wrote:

    Darlene wrote:
    But miss a few of those home group meetings and your salvation is on the line.
    One day, I need to share with you all how my home group functions. We have been together for 14 years. We go to different churches. We are all different in personality. But we have been there for each other through cancer and death, sickness, problems with kids, weddings and funerals, in good times and thought times.
    It is amazing that we hang in there and that is due to a committed leader and his hospitable wife who say-“Get over here” twice a month. We don’t review anyone’s sermons. We read the Bible and a very occasional book.
    Our individual theology is all over the map. But, we are there for each other.
    That is one of the reasons I am a fan of starting your own Bible study. It can work.

    Thank you, Dee, for this! God has been giving me a desire to have gatherings in our home so that we can love others as ourselves in Christ. I was once part of a group like yours – all sorts of Christians attended from Pentecostals, to Catholics, to Orthodox, to non-Denominational, to Baptist. ALL WERE WELCOME. And God’s love was evident among us. The couple that had these gatherings in their home moved out of state and so there is a vacuum in my life of sorts at this time.

  230. Max wrote:

    A complex systematic theology of unrevisable doctrine trumps a simple personal relationship with Christ in reformed works.

    The Holy Spirit is like the wind, and he cannot be fitted within a systematic theology. These guys really need to read the Bible.

  231. refugee wrote:

    (ah, I’m so good at coming up with “but”… uppity woman that I am)

    You are uppity? Where is Beaker? She is a “usurper”. 😮

  232. Darlene wrote:

    Yep, American Evangelicalism looks a bit wacky to Christians outside the U.S.

    … and to quite a few inside the U.S. 🙂

  233. Jay wrote:

    I also wanted to say, Velour, that what happened at your former church is completely insane. I honestly had not heard of this “new” practice of excommunication/shunning until I started reading this blog. It’s as unbiblical now as it was when it was first challenged some centuries back.

    Thanks, Jay. Yes, it is a great travesty what the NeoCals have done to good Christians. It’s right up there with the Salem Witch Trials.

    At my former NeoCal church the pastors/elders’ insufferable control extended to:

    *Controlling my home’s décor. The senior pastor and one of his women friends – both Pharisees – were *offended* that I had an Italian cross hanging on a wall in my home, a lovely birthday gift that I’ve had for years and that cost hundreds of dollars. It’s beautiful art. I have art work from countries all over the world.

    *Controlling my friendships, whom I had to be friends with.

    *Demands by the pastors/elders and their women friends for my private business. What an affront. Can you imagine as an adult being told that you owed other people your private business (and nothing to do with sin?)?????

    *I was told that I wasn’t attending a week night Bible study on a regular basis and the senior pastor screamed at me for that and demanded *answers*. The usual answer: Work and commute, not back in time.

    *I was criticized by an elder for riding my bike to church in a dress in the summer time. I had bike shorts on underneath my dress.

    *The entire elder board had a meeting about the bbq beef brisket I bought to a church potluck. I was criticized for being *too lavish*.

    Just bizarre and insufferable, all of them.

  234. Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

    And before the late 19th Century (when they hit on how to refine it out of bauxite ore), aluminum was much more valuable than gold.

    I believe that the very tippity-top of the Washington Monument is a little pyramid of aluminum… very high-tech and modern, you know.

  235. Patrice wrote:

    I do not understand why, as church membership continues to diminish, leaders take up such off-putting ideas. It’s like a clueless parent doubling/tripling down during an argument with a teenager. Counterproductive!

    But very Fundagelical.

    If whatever you come up with fails, Double Down and SCREAM LOUDER!

    (Your Ideology is Perfect; This time you WILL Achieve True Communism…)

  236. Jay wrote:

    I think it’s also pretty common we use our modern “lenses” when looking back at what people did centuries ago. (not to excuse any particular act or sin, but to not consider the role of the State in particular back then isn’t really fair) Was Calvin perfect? No… Was he a sinner? Yes. Did he call on Jesus? What do you think?

    There were people in Calvin’s day who did not believe in the church/state system. What did Calvin think of that? Was Calvin not usurping the Holy Spirit’s authority and claiming it for himself and his state patrons? Calvin’s apologists always use the “man of his times” defense, but that does not work when there were men of those times who knew it was wrong for the church to ally itself with the state.

  237. js wrote:

    Was Paul a human mediator for Timothy? He clearly taught Timothy, mentored him, wrote him at least two letters, gave him specific commands, and did it all in the context of love. Paul mediated the love of Christ to Timothy by caring for him and nurturing him and by leading him, and he urges others in the body to similar relationships.

    That is a “mediator” to you? Paul was between Timothy and Christ?

    Kind of interesting thought to think of Paul being Timothy’s spiritual boss, so to speak. His boss left him in the wild pagan city of Ephesus. But then Timothy, though young, had been in the trenches, too, as a sort of apprentice before that. But Ephesus? What an education!

  238. @ js:
    Why does this look so much like special pleading? If the command to greet one another with a holy kiss can be “explained away” by cultural considerations, why is it illegitimate for mutualists to point out that there are important cultural considerations at Ephesus? You cannot have it both ways. Either we consider all the evidence, both grammatical, textual, and cultural, or we should be honest and just admit that we are making our own interpretation into a law by which we can bind others to benefit ourselves.

  239. Patrice wrote:

    Velour wrote:

    Even conservative Christian men that I know in Europe, elders in their churches for more than 40 years, have said that something terrible has happened to the American church and it has more in common with radical Islam’s authoritarian structure than with our freedom in Christ.

    I did not know that. Thanks, Velour.

    Yes, Christians around the world are on to this bizarre, un-Biblical, Acts29/9Marks stuff…The Shepherding Movement all over again.

  240. Daisy wrote:

    Many genuine Christians will defend the “Billy Graham rule” to the death (i.e., never, ever be left alone with a woman, especially not an unmarried one, because adultery is guaranteed to result – according to this line of thinking).

    A rule Billy Graham adopted not “because adultery is guaranteed to result”, but to minimize any chance of a false accusation for whatever reason. Remember, Billy Graham was a GENUINE Public Figure and figured he had to take precautions to avoid any possible appearance of scandal.

    Public figures not only make enemies but also attract groupies and crazy stalkers, any of which could originate a false accusation.

  241. js wrote:

    I think Paul teaches that women are saved through childbearing too, because that is what the text says. I admit freely that I don’t know what it means, and I have read the possible explanations (including yours). There are lots of things in the Bible I don’t fully understand, as is true of any Christian.

    You do not know what verse 15 means, yet you are ready to make universal dogma out of verses 11-12 which are grammatically linked to verses 13, 14, and 15. What kind of hermeneutic that is conservative mangles the text like that? If Paul plainly says that a woman may not ever teach a man or exercise any authority over a man because the male was created first and then the female was created second and because the female was deceived (which supposedly proves that females have a propensity to be deceived), then verse 15 must mean what it plainly says.

    What school of logic allows someone to sever off one part of an argument from the entirety of the argument? What hermeneutic allows someone to switch rules in the middle of an argument? The only kind of logic and hermeneutic that allows that is one that is designed to yield a particular result, and the end justifies butchering conservative hermeneutics as well as the logic in which Paul was trained. How does that make any sense?

  242. Ok, I’m gonna say this plain and simple and I believe a few here will agree with me: THIS IS THE FRUIT OF CALVINISM! There….I said it. And I just don’t mean NeoCalvinism. Read what happened in Calvin’s Geneva. Read what eventually occurred among the Reformed Puritans in New England. Read Jonathan Edward’s “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” Can’t you just FEEL the love? 😉 Oh, and read Rusas Rushdoony’s writings on Christian Reconstructionism. Read A.W. Pink’s “The Attributes of God.” Hey, at least he is honest and comes right out saying: “God doesn’t love everybody.” Yep, their God delights in hating certain folks all to the praise and glory of His name – to glorify Himself. He determines some to be damned before they were ever born – before the foundation of the world – so that they never had a chance to be saved. Yet, somehow God damns them for decisions that they couldn’t help but make because they were ALWAYS deemed reprobates. And this, folks, is the tip of the iceberg, as I like to say.

  243. js wrote:

    think Paul teaches that women are saved through childbearing too, because that is what the text says.

    So sad for all those devout followers of Christ who are barren. Hell it is then.

  244. js wrote:

    Are you all saying that the YRR folks really believe that church elders take the place of Christ as mediator or stand as co-mediators with Him?

    No, I am saying Leeman has implied that with his teaching. He is very clever in wording but that is the clear implication. I was glad some others picked up on it. I was aghast. One other thing they do to try and stave off too much outrage is make the claim it is the “local church” with the power. But in truth it is the elders in the local church because only they are allowed to interpret scripture for everyone else as vetted teachers.

  245. Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

    Patrice wrote:

    I do not understand why, as church membership continues to diminish, leaders take up such off-putting ideas. It’s like a clueless parent doubling/tripling down during an argument with a teenager. Counterproductive!

    But very Fundagelical.

    If whatever you come up with fails, Double Down and SCREAM LOUDER!

    (Your Ideology is Perfect; This time you WILL Achieve True Communism…)

    Remember, Patrice, we’re talking about the NeoCals who lack basic, adult, healthy problem-solving skills. The likes of Mark Dever/9Marks can’t be bothered to pick up the phone and call church members to ask how they are and if they would like to be on the church membership roster. Dever’s solution? Church membership covenants so that members *can’t slip out the back exits*.

  246. Lydia wrote:

    js wrote:
    think Paul teaches that women are saved through childbearing too, because that is what the text says.
    So sad for all those devout followers of Christ who are barren. Hell it is then.

    Lydia, following the logic of a reformed mind is like encountering a termite in a yo-yo. I’m so glad you are transformed instead.

  247. Darlene wrote:

    Ok, I’m gonna say this plain and simple and I believe a few here will agree with me: THIS IS THE FRUIT OF CALVINISM! There….I said it. And I just don’t mean NeoCalvinism. Read what happened in Calvin’s Geneva. Read what eventually occurred among the Reformed Puritans in New England. Read Jonathan Edward’s “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” Can’t you just FEEL the love? Oh, and read Rusas Rushdoony’s writings on Christian Reconstructionism. Read A.W. Pink’s “The Attributes of God.” Hey, at least he is honest and comes right out saying: “God doesn’t love everybody.” Yep, their God delights in hating certain folks all to the praise and glory of His name – to glorify Himself. He determines some to be damned before they were ever born – before the foundation of the world – so that they never had a chance to be saved. Yet, somehow God damns them for decisions that they couldn’t help but make because they were ALWAYS deemed reprobates. And this, folks, is the tip of the iceberg, as I like to say.

    Amen!

  248. js wrote:

    And yes, even women can share their experiences in the assembly (gasp).

    Are they allowed to share what God teaches in the Bible? How do your elders determine if she is “teaching” the men when she shares her testimony? What if she quotes the Bible in her testimony and gives the men a polluted understanding of what the Bible means, due to being female and all that?

  249. js wrote:

    And yes, even women can share their experiences in the assembly (gasp).

    Wow. How… inclusive.

    In our former church, women were allowed to speak at times, though I never figured out the rules. (During worship was a definite no-no. Congregational meetings? Yes. I think. Testimonial time — usually at Thanksgiving or New Year’s? Yes. Though not many did.) As a rule, they didn’t, because most of us weren’t sure if and when it was okay. I remember an elder’s wife bemoaning the fact that women almost never spoke up in situations where their voices were welcome.

  250. Lydia wrote:

    js wrote:

    Is there a place in the world for God-ordained leadership?

    What on earth is the Holy Spirit for? To tell leaders what to do?

    This pretty much sums up this whole discussion.

    Leaders, of course, always being men, whether in church or in the home.

    Men are therefore the mediators between God and women. Their Holy Spirit trumps the woman’s Holy Spirit.

    What kind of Christianity is this anyway??

  251. JohnD wrote:

    They do concede elsewhere in the document that the Holy Spirit can do some of the work of sanctification without them.

    Which is pretty amazing considering the Holy Spirit apparently plays the role of child in the Trinity. Or maybe grandchild. I can’t quite understand if the Eternal Son is the Son or if he represents the subordinate woman. Hence my confusion regarding the status of the Holy Spirit in the hierarchy within the immanent Trinity.

  252. Gram3 wrote:

    What if she quotes the Bible in her testimony and gives the men a polluted understanding of what the Bible means, due to being female and all that?

    I guess if one thinks that men will believe anything some woman tells them, there might be real danger there. It would be interesting to see if some of those with oppressive leadership styles are operating from that assumption.

  253. Gram3 wrote:

    js wrote:

    And yes, even women can share their experiences in the assembly (gasp).

    Are they allowed to share what God teaches in the Bible? How do your elders determine if she is “teaching” the men when she shares her testimony? What if she quotes the Bible in her testimony and gives the men a polluted understanding of what the Bible means, due to being female and all that?

    We let the Spirit lead.

  254. Scott wrote:

    @ Gram3:
    That would be because Millers basic approach would be akin to that of Pravda.
    Notice he accuses legitimate questions of being “uncivil” based on his bias.
    Would imagine 40% of attempted dialogue on that rag never sees light of day.

    It does seem to be a rather utilitarian view of truth. Why not let the views be heard and refuted with reason or scripture? My guess is because they could not do that, so they either censor or shout it down.

  255. Gram3 wrote:

    JohnD wrote:

    They do concede elsewhere in the document that the Holy Spirit can do some of the work of sanctification without them.

    Which is pretty amazing considering the Holy Spirit apparently plays the role of child in the Trinity. Or maybe grandchild. I can’t quite understand if the Eternal Son is the Son or if he represents the subordinate woman. Hence my confusion regarding the status of the Holy Spirit in the hierarchy within the immanent Trinity.

    I have been pondering this very question, Gram3.

  256. js wrote:

    , I think they are on very shaky ground as it is a sound principle not to make heavily disputed passages the cornerstones of doctrine without good reason.

    This is one of the foundation stones of sound hermeneutics, yet the Female Subordinationists violate it right and left. Their prooftexts are all disputed, even among themselves such as 1 Corinthians 11 and 1 Timothy 2. Yet they become dogma. They will not apply the rules consistently because that yields the “wrong” result.

  257. js wrote:

    I don’t need 1 Timothy 2:15 to prove anything about roles in marriage

    Please elucidate that proof, because I have been on a quest for the Magic Male Authority verses, and no one can help me.

  258. Jay wrote:

    I will merely state that there seems to be some difference of opinion on the topic of whether Calvin was a raging sociopath and leave it at that.

    Nah, he was merely a narcissist with chronic kidney stones. Story told me when in Calvinettes: he’d gallop his horse for hours to try to shake/pound them down/out. That’d be enough pain to turn any garden-variety egocentric into the ogre under a bridge. It also should have eliminated him from leadership positions, but since it isn’t listed in the Bible under qualifications….

  259. @ Max:
    Max, I would deeply appreciate it if they would use some simple common sense when it comes to the “plain reading” of scripture. Heck, women have a “work” for salvation. Not just repentance and belief, either, but they have to have kids! Does it even occur to them that many women died back then having children? Well, we know those women are “saved”, right?

    It is too beautiful of a passage to mangle like that. Messiah was promised through women as God told Eve. Women would be a conduit to Redemption! Mary bore Jesus.

    It is about being “saved” through the “childbearing” of Messiah because of the fertility cult in Ephesus who taught that Eve was formed first and so many women died then in childbirth. Not to worry….you don’t need that pagan cult. You have THE CHILDBEARING to “save” you.

    It is just too beautiful to allow that ridiculous interpretation. It is no wonder the evil one has a special hate for women as we saw soon after the fall.

  260. Gram3 wrote:

    Which is pretty amazing considering the Holy Spirit apparently plays the role of child in the Trinity. Or maybe grandchild. I can’t quite understand if the Eternal Son is the Son or if he represents the subordinate woman. Hence my confusion regarding the status of the Holy Spirit in the hierarchy within the immanent Trinity.

    It seemed like in ESS, since you hear nothing about the HS, that the HS is a junior assistant to Jesus and rarely called upon.

  261. @ okrapod:

    A while back a bunch of baptist preachers stood up and turned their backs on Anne Graham Lotz when she was preaching. Quite the drama they planned.

  262. js wrote:

    Lydia wrote:

    js wrote:

    Was Paul a human mediator for Timothy? He clearly taught Timothy, mentored him, wrote him at least two letters, gave him specific commands, and did it all in the context of love. Paul mediated the love of Christ to Timothy by caring for him and nurturing him and by leading him, and he urges others in the body to similar relationships.

    Even if I were to grant you that Paul was mediating (And I don’t), he was an apostle and one who received apparent direct revelation from God – I don’t know of anyone conservative who would deny that. I’m having a very hard time taking that dynamic on a leap to present day Christianity, unless you still want to say there’s apostles receiving special revelation still, today.

    Otherwise, we have the completed scriptures. What need to do we have for human “mediation”? What access to God does anyone have that I don’t? I have no more special access to God than my wife. And you’d say “of course leaders don’t have special access to God!” Then what need for authority in the church? But the Bible says…. Which leads us back to historical/cultural context to make sense of what we have in scripture.

    Even John, I believe, says we don’t need teachers, we have the Spirit. Teachers are a luxury, and though I love a good one, they’re not a necessity, and certainly not mediators.

  263. js wrote:

    We let the Spirit lead.

    That’s what they all say, but sadly enough the ‘spirit’ seems to lead in contrary and opposite directions if you believe that everybody who calls the spirit as witness, so to speak, is correct. This is a sad state of affairs, but I don’t have any new answers or suggestions other than what the church has said over the centuries.

  264. js wrote:

    We let the Spirit lead.

    Then why not let women teach and preach? Is the Holy Spirit so selectively impotent that he cannot protect the men when a woman preaches the way he protects the delicate men when she gives her testimony? Please tell me how your system is not just ad hoc with the only bedrock principle being that a man must decide what is OK.

    And please trace out for me how you can come to your conclusion in 1 Timothy without considering the entire argument Paul is making? Do you think it is OK to pick and choose among the clauses of a contract you sign, for example? Can you just make it say what you want it to say? Can the other party just make it say what they want it to say?

  265. okrapod wrote:

    I guess if one thinks that men will believe anything some woman tells them, there might be real danger there. It would be interesting to see if some of those with oppressive leadership styles are operating from that assumption.

    Their operating assumptions are that women are more easily deceived and that women are, by nature, usurpers who desire to take over the rightful place of men. From these assumption elements, all the other toxins are formulated.

  266. And look, count me as one who’s still working through these issues, but upon being awakened to the questions comp doctrine raises, the old pat answers aren’t making sense.

    I was raised on this stuff and the arguments for comp doctrine just don’t make sense to me anymore.

  267. @ Gram3:

    Gosh, you explained it much better than I can. I cannot get over this focus on keeping adults as children in the Body of Christ. We are doing it in our culture…perhaps the church is catching up! But it makes it easier for tyrants to control us if we see ourselves as children who need a mediator.

  268. Max wrote:

    Lydia wrote:

    js wrote:
    think Paul teaches that women are saved through childbearing too, because that is what the text says.
    So sad for all those devout followers of Christ who are barren. Hell it is then.

    Lydia, following the logic of a reformed mind is like encountering a termite in a yo-yo. I’m so glad you are transformed instead.

    I haven’t said anything about female elders. I think that is a lot less clear cut than the roles of husbands and wives in the family. Why do I think it is less clear cut? Because there is too much evidence in the NT that women are exercising some teaching roles in the church. Priscilla with Apollos, maybe Junia, Phoebe perhaps, the Titus elder women, 1 Corinthians 11. As of this point our church does not allow women elders in line with the church’s agreement with the Baptist Faith and Message 2000. There are cases to be made on both sides of that issue but in neither case is ontological or functional inferiority or inequality required. If we can’t fully understand Paul’s meaning we still have to look at what we can understand, both in 1 Timothy and elsewhere. What I see is a pattern of male leadership in church and home with few exceptions, a command of Paul that seems to lead toward men being elders in the church (and 1 Timothy 2 undermines the whole concept of being without leaders, with its references to authority) and the traditional understanding of these issues through church history.

    Of course Paul’s reasoning could have been pure cultural accommodation. It could have been to address some specific error in the church in Ephesus. Or it could have been because he believed the standard he laid out in 1 Timothy was for all believers through all time. I doubt it was the first option, that was not Paul’s style. He brings culture into account but he consistently brings the gospel to bear within culture to transform culture. He may leave the forms of culture intact but they are filled with gospel significance.

    So the two options I see are that Paul meant 1 Timothy 2 to speak to only the church in Ephesus or that Paul meant the words there to be binding for all believers. Some believers lean toward option one, others toward option two. I think there are significant cultural factors which must be brought into play regardless of one’s view. I think all should approach these texts with humility, explaining the best they can why they adopt one view over another. I don’t think believers should castigate one another for their views on this. The charge of liberal should not be lobbed at those who study these things carefully and come to an egalitarian view. The charge of subjugating women should not come to those who by conviction believe God has said women should not serve as elders. Soul competency applies here too, on these matters of interpretation. We can argue with each other about why we the other is wrong, we can try to convince each other of our position. At the end of the day, if we are good Bereans, we may have to part ways of fellowship over a sharp disagreement, but we should be hesitant to question whether the other person believes the gospel or whether we believe the Bible and we should be committed to love and serve Jesus in our present contexts, knowing that God can use even those who do not come to the same understanding of Scripture that we have on a variety of issues. And there is absolutely a place for promoting our views. If we are convinced we see clearly, we should talk about it and promote it and discuss it. There is a place for CBE and for CBMW in my book, so long as neither makes the mistake of saying the gospel IS complementarianism or the gospel IS egalitarianism.

    Gram3 wrote:

    js wrote:

    I think Paul teaches that women are saved through childbearing too, because that is what the text says. I admit freely that I don’t know what it means, and I have read the possible explanations (including yours). There are lots of things in the Bible I don’t fully understand, as is true of any Christian.

    You do not know what verse 15 means, yet you are ready to make universal dogma out of verses 11-12 which are grammatically linked to verses 13, 14, and 15. What kind of hermeneutic that is conservative mangles the text like that? If Paul plainly says that a woman may not ever teach a man or exercise any authority over a man because the male was created first and then the female was created second and because the female was deceived (which supposedly proves that females have a propensity to be deceived), then verse 15 must mean what it plainly says.

    What school of logic allows someone to sever off one part of an argument from the entirety of the argument? What hermeneutic allows someone to switch rules in the middle of an argument? The only kind of logic and hermeneutic that allows that is one that is designed to yield a particular result, and the end justifies butchering conservative hermeneutics as well as the logic in which Paul was trained. How does that make any sense?

  269. Lydia wrote:

    @ okrapod:
    A while back a bunch of baptist preachers stood up and turned their backs on Anne Graham Lotz when she was preaching. Quite the drama they planned.

    I’m sure it was done for the glory of God who was offended by the presence of a woman preaching the Word just like they were offended.

  270. Jay wrote:

    I think it’s also pretty common we use our modern “lenses” when looking back at what people did centuries ago. (not to excuse any particular act or sin, but to not consider the role of the State in particular back then isn’t really fair)

    It is really interesting to read up on the Radical Reformers. Try Leonard Verduin’s “The Reformers and Their Step Children”. Very interesting. The Radical Reformers often were punished severely for what we would call soul liberty today. Were they men/woman of their time?

  271. @ Lydia:
    ESS, like the entire Female Subordinationist schema, is a muddled mess precisely because it is an ad hoc solution to a pressing problem. Gotta keep the females from polluting the sacred spaces and from bossing the men. Gotta convince them they are equal and not equal at the same time. That doesn’t make sense, so…Trinity!

    ISTM that the Subordinate Person is the Female, right? So, the only persons subordinate to the Female in a Family is the child. Except the Son is the Woman but he is still the Son, so the Holy Spirit must be the grandchild of the Father. Why are Female Subordinationists blurring the genders like this?

  272. GovPappy wrote:

    unless you still want to say there’s apostles receiving special revelation still, today.

    Well, churches that believe in the Fivefold Ministry actually do believe that. After being part of such a “church” for 23 years I am skeptical that these Apostles have revealed anything new or worthwhile.

  273. @ Gram3:
    For anyone who thinks I was serious, I was being ridiculous to show how ridiculous the reasoning is of the Female Subordinationists. And it is also blasphemous, IMO.

  274. js wrote:

    There is a place for CBE and for CBMW in my book, so long as neither makes the mistake of saying the gospel IS complementarianism or the gospel IS egalitarianism

    What they promote is akin to radical Islam’s view of women and has ZERO to do with our freedom in Christ.

    As one man Christian recently posted a new word for his War on Women going on in the NeoCal churches: “Shehad” (the pronoun “She” + had; sounds like Jihad).

    Even conservative Christian men I know in Europe, long-time elders in their churches for 40+ years, have said that the current American church has more in common with radical Islam than with Christianity. They, in Europe, have said there is something terribly wrong with American Christianity.

  275. Jay wrote:

    Velour wrote:
    Jeffrey J Chalmers wrote:
    I’m merely pointing out that you are making a pretty strong judgement of a person who in his writings clearly claimed Jesus is the only way to salvation. Calvin may have even agreed with you that he was evil, as are we all without the transforming work of the Cross.
    I think it’s also pretty common we use our modern “lenses” when looking back at what people did centuries ago. (not to excuse any particular act or sin, but to not consider the role of the State in particular back then isn’t really fair) Was Calvin perfect? No… Was he a sinner? Yes. Did he call on Jesus? What do you think?
    Who cares what Calvin wrote and professed on paper? He didn’t live it out in his life. He was evil. Calvin didn’t adhere to the standard – the love – that Jesus commanded of us. This is the *standard* the Lord called us to, it has nothing to do with modern standards.
    How can you minimize the great evil that Calvin perpetrated on other peoples’ lives and mitigate it with the trite words/sin leveling about we’re all sinners.
    Calvin destroyed peoples’ lives. That is not laughable. That is not The Gospel. He was just a clanging bell.
    I will merely state that there seems to be some difference of opinion on the topic of whether Calvin was a raging sociopath and leave it at that.

    Ok, I don’t think any of us can definitively declare that Calvin wasn’t saved. That is a matter left up to God. And I say that having come clean about my views on Calvinism. However, by the grace and mercy of God, many are His children in spite of their poor theology. For some, it is because they do not actually put into practice all the the aberrant teaching. For others, in spite of the wrong teachings (think TULIP folks) they still have a relationship with Christ and trust in His love. I have said to my Calvinist friend from time to time, that she isn’t really a Calvinist, even though she staunchly claims to be one. However, she doesn’t buy into Calvin 100%. And that is why she is often able to act contrary to the *spirit* of Calvinism. The degree to which a person commits themselves to Calvin, i.e. Reformed theology, it will be to that degree that their thoughts and actions will be shaped by that theological system.

  276. Lydia wrote:

    js wrote:

    think Paul teaches that women are saved through childbearing too, because that is what the text says.

    So sad for all those devout followers of Christ who are barren. Hell it is then.

    That wasn’t fair. You know that was not my implication. My point is it is true because God said it (through Paul). Now the question is, what does it mean? There I am less certain but I have always liked the view you express in a later post.

  277. Gram3 wrote:

    ESS, like the entire Female Subordinationist schema, is a muddled mess precisely because it is an ad hoc solution to a pressing problem. Gotta keep the females from polluting the sacred spaces and from bossing the men. Gotta convince them they are equal and not equal at the same time. That doesn’t make sense, so…Trinity

    So far all of the men in churches that I have known who have promoted these bizarre comp doctrines:

    a) had abusive fathers; or

    b) non-existent relationships with their fathers;

    c) don’t know how to *be men* and haven’t reconciled their pain/anger/loss about a) and b);

    d) and frequently are hiding their own gross sexual sins (of children, other females, males, etc).

  278. js wrote:

    There is a place for CBE and for CBMW in my book, so long as neither makes the mistake of saying the gospel IS complementarianism or the gospel IS egalitarianism.

    CBMW says that Female Subordinationism is essential to picture the Gospel and transmit it effectively. They very carefully word this so that they are not technically making it a “Gospel Issue.” Frankly, I don’t much respect people who have to wordsmith everything so that it means something other than what they are saying. They know they can’t say women are not equal and not equal, so they make up ESS. They know that gender has absolutely nothing to do with the Gospel, but the need the Gospel as a cloak for their real agenda of female subjugation. And, yes, that is what it is. If you are denying the agency of a person, you are denying their full personhood. Period. Recall Jim Crow which was a thing during a big part of my life.

  279. @ js:
    Please eludicate your proof that Paul intended to bind all women for all time based on his instructions to Timothy at Ephesus. By what logic are men not bound to plant a smooch on other men? How do you make your decisions one way or the other regarding which is a generally binding rule and which is a culturally bound instruction?

  280. @ js:

    Sorry Js! But that is the only logical, common sense conclusion to that interpretation of the passage. It is one reason I really encourage folks to read the Gospels over and over and over and over and over….then read Paul.

    I will have to get back to you on the idea that God forced every word Paul wrote. I think that is a bit deterministic and does not allow for the uniqueness in which we were all created. Look at the other books and the differences in style and focus.. And worse, we don’t have the originals! However, I believe scriptures are inspired but we seem to do best when we stick with the larger themes of God’s wisdom and rescue than making it a manual to beat folks with. I am wondering what on earth the Holy Spirit is for if it is a manual! I mean if it is a manual the least God could have done is publish the list of questions sent to Paul by the Corinthians so we could see the two way convo going on! And where is that letter to Laodicea? Was it lost?

  281. Jay wrote:

    I will merely state that there seems to be some difference of opinion on the topic of whether Calvin was a raging sociopath and leave it at that.

    Velour and Jay,
    I am not ashamed to say that I am an admirer of Calvin, although I would freely admit the man was not perfect. I just came across some really great thoughts on Calvin in a biography on William Childs Robinson titled “Pleading Reformation Vision: The Life and Selected Writings of William Childs Robinson (1897-1982).” Since I am not at my computer I will not type the lengthy quote; maybe I can do that when I return to Dubai. I think both Calvin’s admirers and detractors would be satisfied with the quote. It can be found on page 58-60 of the book.

  282. @ js:
    Why don’t we cut to the chase. Just outline your understanding of Paul’s entire argument, including verse 15. Or, alternatively, please outline your reasons for disregarding the rules of reason and conservative hermeneutics by asserting that you *know* what he was plainly saying in verses 11-12 while you do *not* know what he is saying in verse 15.

  283. Gram3 wrote:

    They know they can’t say women are not equal and not equal, so they make up ESS

    They know they can’t say women are equal and not equal. See, just writing about this confusion is confusing.

  284. Todd Wilhelm wrote:

    standing

    Thanks Todd. I paid a high price for standing up to my former church’s pastors/elders over the issue of their friend the convicted Megan’s List sex offender that the secreted into church membership and positions of trust and leadership without telling a soul.

    Thankfully my friends, whose young son the sex offender had honed in and ran his hands through the young child’s hair (without the parents knowing the man was a sex offender) packed up and moved out of the area to *be near family*. If they had tried to leave that church any other way they too would have been placed under church discipline.

    But what is so frightening is that those pastors/elders have put so many children in danger whose parents have no idea that is a Megan’s List sex offender in that church.

    The pastors/elders repeatedly called me at home and threatened me that I was to never talk to this sex offender’s supervising law enforcement agency again.

    I just wonder what dark secrets these pastors/elders are hiding that will come to light down the road.

  285. Velour wrote:

    NeoCals who lack basic, adult, healthy problem-solving skills. The likes of Mark Dever/9Marks can’t be bothered to pick up the phone and call church members to ask how they are

    Yeah, you could be right about their problem-solving skills—I don’t know enough about their local church lives.

    But if I’m reading their posts and blog interactions correctly, they simply don’t think that pewpeons’ opinions are of value. They write as if they’ve heard it all before and anything disagreeable is incorrect, lacking spiritual depth, maturity, education, proper gender, etc. The combox under discussion is more interesting than most I’ve seen. They don’t enjoy dissent; they find it annoying and possibly threatening.

    Forget that a big part of their job is teaching and that learning works best as conversation/debate (I mean, really, this has been understood since Socrates). Forget that their words rest on the public square of the internet, testimony to the God of whom they speak, for good and ill.

    IMO, they are stubborn with self-righteousness, believing themselves to be so mature and gifted that they can announce, pronounce, and denounce, having and holding the forever&ever keys of God’s kingdom.

    They believe that people with ears to hear will hear them and rejoice at the pearls falling from pens and lips. Humble sinners, of course, all of them, just like the rest of us, but somehow extraordinarily redeemed to be the sages of this age.

    Pfffft.

  286. js wrote:

    When a congregation, acting in obedience to Matthew 18 and 1 Corinthians 5, by mutual decision, excludes someone from the local church, are you saying they are acting as sinful mediators between the believer and Christ? The congregation is individual Christians acting collectively to exclude a member. They are saying by this action, even when they have a desire for repentance and restoration, that they do not believe this person belongs in the fellowship of believers. I think the congregation can’t make an ultimate judgment about the person’s soul but they can and in rare case should make an decision to exclude one from fellowship.

    I appreciate your input, but on this you are just flat out wrong. The whole Leeman, Dever, 9Marks thing is about saying who is in and who is out. They see themselves as God’s arbiters here on earth. Now at the end of their articles, they will say that Christ is the ultimate arbiter, but those statements are in conflict with what they have just said. It is easy to go on the internet and find Leemans’s statement on membership, the keys, etc. Here is a statement from Leeman straight from the 9Marks website:

    “So what exactly are these keys of the kingdom for binding and loosing? I have argued elsewhere that the keys represent the authority to build the church on earth on Jesus’ behalf by declaring what and who belong to the kingdom of heaven—what is a right confession of the gospel, and who is a right confessor. Certainly, preaching is highly related to the exercise of the keys, and could even be said to form an implicit part of their exercise. But, strictly speaking, I would argue that the exercise of the keys is the pronouncing of a judgment. It is a legal or judicial binding or loosing. It is a church’s decision about what constitutes a right confession and who is a true confessor.

    In other words, the keys are put into practice whenever
    •a church decides upon a confession of faith that will bind all church members,
    •a church admits a member,
    •a church excludes a member.

    The holder of the keys—the church—is being called upon to assess a person’s life and profession of faith and then to make a heavenly sanctioned and public pronouncement affirming or denying the person’s citizenship in the kingdom and inclusion in the church.”

    If this is that is the case, I am going back over the Tibur. At least the Pope had the authority of droves of Catholics and 1,500 years of tradition. What do Leeman and Dever have?

  287. Gram3 wrote:

    @ js:
    Please eludicate your proof that Paul intended to bind all women for all time based on his instructions to Timothy at Ephesus. By what logic are men not bound to plant a smooch on other men? How do you make your decisions one way or the other regarding which is a generally binding rule and which is a culturally bound instruction?

    And here are some good articles from conservative Baptist pastor Wade Burleson:
    http://www.wadeburleson.org/2015/06/artemis-redux-women-and-i-timothy-29-15.html

    http://www.wadeburleson.org/2010/12/how-i-changed-my-mind-about-women-in.html

    http://www.wadeburleson.org/2012/09/the-woman-of-error-in-i-timothy-212.html

    http://www.wadeburleson.org/2007/01/sheri-klouda-gender-discrimination_17.html

  288. @ Darlene:
    Calvin believed that correct doctrine trumped righteousness. In fact, his ST teaches that “righteousness is imputed” (done for us) when we are chosen and remain wicked. In effect there is no synergistic sanctifacation. As in growing in Holiness. Which is strange because Jesus tells people to be perfect (as in mature and completed). But look at how many say ‘that is impossible’ so don’t even try!

    I think the biggest problem is that Calvin keeps us stuck at the cross. There is not really any “Good News” without the resurrection which means New Life. New creations in Christ.

    WE are to reflect “Christ in us” back out into the world.

    For some reason many have bought into the idea that behavior does not matter in the Christian journey. I believe John touches on this with “walking in the light” and “walking in darkness’. He even calls sin “lawlessness”. Jesus called the Pharisee “lawless”. And this does not mean we are under Mosaic law. It does mean we are to govern ourselves with the help of the Holy Spirit with the law of love…which includes justice, mercy, compassion, truth, etc.

    Calvin had a ton of rotten fruit in both his teaching and his behavior. He encouraged and implemented a lot of cruelty to a lot of people. And he had very willing accomplices with the council.

  289. Velour wrote:

    How can you minimize the great evil that Calvin perpetrated on other peoples’ lives and mitigate it with the trite words/sin leveling about we’re all sinners.
    Calvin destroyed peoples’ lives. That is not laughable. That is not The Gospel. He was just a clanging bell.

    Not only did Calving destroy good Christian people’s live. He burned them. The Reformed try to defend Calvin on Servetus by saying everybody did it then. No, the Anabaptists most certainly did not. And even if everybody did, so what? That does not excuse it. And, Calvin did not only have Servetus burned, but he had many more burned. He was scared of the plaques and thought they were the product of witchcraft. He had a bunch of people burned as witches. There were people executed for questioning Calvin. This is authority gone haywire. And while it happened in RCC circles as well, Calvin is not excused because he was no better than some of the Catholic (not all) authorities.

  290. Will M wrote:

    Velour wrote:

    How can you minimize the great evil that Calvin perpetrated on other peoples’ lives and mitigate it with the trite words/sin leveling about we’re all sinners.
    Calvin destroyed peoples’ lives. That is not laughable. That is not The Gospel. He was just a clanging bell.

    Not only did Calving destroy good Christian people’s live. He burned them. The Reformed try to defend Calvin on Servetus by saying everybody did it then. No, the Anabaptists most certainly did not. And even if everybody did, so what? That does not excuse it. And, Calvin did not only have Servetus burned, but he had many more burned. He was scared of the plaques and thought they were the product of witchcraft. He had a bunch of people burned as witches. There were people executed for questioning Calvin. This is authority gone haywire. And while it happened in RCC circles as well, Calvin is not excused because he was no better than some of the Catholic (not all) authorities.

    Thank you, Will M. (Are you the poster who is Eastern Orthodox, or I am confusing you with another poster?)

  291. Will M wrote:

    I appreciate your input, but on this you are just flat out wrong. The whole Leeman, Dever, 9Marks thing is about saying who is in and who is out. They see themselves as God’s arbiters here on earth. Now at the end of their articles, they will say that Christ is the ultimate arbiter, but those statements are in conflict with what they have just said. It is easy to go on the internet and find Leemans’s statement on membership, the keys, etc. Here is a statement from Leeman straight from the 9Marks website:

    Conservative Christian elders I know in Europe (40+ years as elders) are alarmed by 9Marks/Acts 29 and all of these un-Biblical things being done in American churches, including excommunications and shunnings, banning people from attending church services, etc. for the slightest dissent and exercise of Christian conscience (and no gross sexual immorality).

  292. Gram3 wrote:

    Their operating assumptions are that women are more easily deceived and that women are, by nature, usurpers who desire to take over the rightful place of men.

    And human history has proven this to be true, again and again, full as it is with naive power-hungry women: their endless wars, colonizing, raping of the earth. Their ignorant academies, governments, arts, architectures. And endless books. It’s seen most in the sciences, of course, in which women always excel. Poor guys. They need so much help.

    sarc/

  293. Gram3 wrote:

    Which is pretty amazing considering the Holy Spirit apparently plays the role of child in the Trinity. Or maybe grandchild. I can’t quite understand if the Eternal Son is the Son or if he represents the subordinate woman. Hence my confusion regarding the status of the Holy Spirit in the hierarchy within the immanent Trinity.

    I cannot figure out the role of the Holy Spirit in the NeoCalvinism either. They do not talk about the Holy Spirit a lot. I know that you cannot pray to him. I think the Spirit is some kind of gofor for the Trinity.

  294. DAve Miller writes:

    “The church was built by those who stood for their convictions at the point of death. They did not write anonymous screeds to protect themselves from the consequences of their words.”

    The book of Hebrews?

    (I cannot comment there)

  295. Dave Miller:

    “Dee, by the way, I have never heard, personally, of the situation you reference, where a pastor or church leaders peruse blogs and punish those who comment.

    The only exception there might be the Jacksonville and Bellevue blogs. Jax especially got nasty.”

    Tom Rich deserved it then? Of course we are talking Millers definition of “nasty”. Miller’s definition of “attack” and “harsh”. He gets to arbitrate the definitions because he is the moderator. But it is good to be forewarned.

  296. Will M wrote:

    I cannot figure out the role of the Holy Spirit in the NeoCalvinism either. They do not talk about the Holy Spirit a lot. I know that you cannot pray to him. I think the Spirit is some kind of gofor for the Trinity.

    It gets even creepier. I can remember when Bruce Ware was vascillating around on whether we should pray to Jesus or not. ‘They really do have a problem with 3 different gods in a caste system trinity.

  297. Velour wrote:

    Will M wrote:

    Velour wrote:

    How can you minimize the great evil that Calvin perpetrated on other peoples’ lives and mitigate it with the trite words/sin leveling about we’re all sinners.
    Calvin destroyed peoples’ lives. That is not laughable. That is not The Gospel. He was just a clanging bell.

    Not only did Calving destroy good Christian people’s live. He burned them. The Reformed try to defend Calvin on Servetus by saying everybody did it then. No, the Anabaptists most certainly did not. And even if everybody did, so what? That does not excuse it. And, Calvin did not only have Servetus burned, but he had many more burned. He was scared of the plaques and thought they were the product of witchcraft. He had a bunch of people burned as witches. There were people executed for questioning Calvin. This is authority gone haywire. And while it happened in RCC circles as well, Calvin is not excused because he was no better than some of the Catholic (not all) authorities.

    Thank you, Will M. (Are you the poster who is Eastern Orthodox, or I am confusing you with another poster?)

    No another poster. I do like a lot of the Orthodox view on some theological matters, but not Orthodox.

  298. Will M wrote:

    No another poster. I do like a lot of the Orthodox view on some theological matters, but not Orthodox.

    Thanks, Will.

  299. Lydia wrote:

    It gets even creepier. I can remember when Bruce Ware was vascillating around on whether we should pray to Jesus or not. ‘They really do have a problem with 3 different gods in a caste system trinity.

    Been there. This teaching filtered down to my (previous) NeoCal church. They could not find a place in scripture where you prayed to Jesus. I bit my tongue and did not mention Stephen. Looking back, I probably should have. One of our young NeoCal pastors actually posited that (due to His Omnipresence) God (the Father) was in hell but the Son was not. I kind of questioned then if the Father and Son are truly of one substance. Did not go over well!

  300. Gram3 wrote:

    STM that the Subordinate Person is the Female, right? So, the only persons subordinate to the Female in a Family is the child. Except the Son is the Woman but he is still the Son, so the Holy Spirit must be the grandchild of the Father. Why are Female Subordinationists blurring the genders like this?

    The Holy Spirit remains the grandchild running around where it will?

    But then we have another problem. When they map ESS to gender we have the male as God and the woman, who is lesser, as the sacrificial Jesus. But wait! In Ephesians The male is Christ and the woman is the church.

    Oh dear. I am so confused. Just give me my “role” so I can “pretend” to be what they say I should be and act out my life.

    Good thing that IN CHRIST there is no slave/free, Jew/Gentile, male nor female. We are all FULL heirs.

  301. Lydia wrote:

    It gets even creepier. I can remember when Bruce Ware was vascillating around on whether we should pray to Jesus or not.

    He says we should pray to the Father because Jesus is subordinate in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I urge everyone who wants to know about ESS to read Ware’s words for themselves. Note how many times he uses “clearly” or “it is clear” or “is it not clear that..” or “can we not conclude that…” It is his way of garnering agreement without arguing his case, or so it appears to me. In fact, I urge everyone to read Grudem’s words and Piper’s words and all the others’ words for themselves and test them using sound reasoning, sound hermeneutics, and the text.

  302. Lydia wrote:

    I can remember when Bruce Ware was vascillating around on whether we should pray to Jesus or not.

    Why be a Christian if you don’t pray to Jesus? Why not just convert to Judaism and give it a rest?

  303. Patrice wrote:

    orget that a big part of their job is teaching and that learning works best as conversation/debate (I mean, really, this has been understood since Socrates). Forget that their words rest on the public square of the internet, testimony to the God of whom they speak, for good and ill.

    Where on earth did the “stand on a stage and speak” to a large audience with no interaction come from? It is the worst possible method for the Body of Christ. Yet, many have been told the sermon is the most important event of their week. Mahaney used to say this all the time.

    I don’t mind going to hear a scholar speak but even they take open questions/challenges after a lecture.

  304. js wrote:

    My personal opinion is that abuse exists wherever humans gather in groups in any sustained way and that it is not endemic to one type of system over another. The types of abuses may change but the human struggle for power and control is as old as Eden.

    Agreed that anything run by humans is open for abuse but it is a logical fallacy to imply that all organization forms have the same potential. I believe hierarchical systems are more prone to abuse and when they become authoritarian, abuse becomes inevitable.

  305. This thing about women being saved through having weans.

    It’s bedtime in Blightly and I haven’t got time to do an interlinear thingy, whereas we need to be careful with the Greek on that verse more than most. But just to consider the verse itself:

    [she/they] will be saved through the bearing of weans if they continue in faith and love and sanctity with self-restraint.

    At the very crudest reading, it’s not weanbearing that saves women; it’s weanbearing and. In the context of what the rest of the NT says about what saves people – which has a lot to do with faith, evidenced by love, and not so much to do with having weans – that should give us pause.

    zzzzzzzzz

  306. Gram3 wrote:

    He says we should pray to the Father because Jesus is subordinate in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I

    That is it. I heard him speak on his book a while back. He just blows my mind. People just ate it up.

  307. @ Gram3:
    Correction: On page 18 Ware says we should pray to the Father through the Son by the power of the Holy Spirit. Parents incorrect teach their children to start their prayers with “Dear Jesus.” It has been a long time since I read the book, and he no doubt elaborates later. I just wanted to clarify my previous comment which may be accurate but which is not in the first few pages. In any case, it certainly makes it odd that Jesus is interceding for us but we are not supposed to pray to him.

  308. Lydia wrote:

    I don’t mind going to hear a scholar speak but even they take open questions/challenges after a lecture.

    Now there is a recipe, have the pastor field questions after the message. My guess is they wouldn’t let you or I near the microphone.

  309. Will M wrote:

    een there. This teaching filtered down to my (previous) NeoCal church. They could not find a place in scripture where you prayed to Jesus. I bit my tongue and did not mention Stephen. Looking back, I probably should have. One of our young NeoCal pastors actually posited that (due to His Omnipresence) God (the Father) was in hell but the Son was not. I kind of questioned then if the Father and Son are truly of one substance. Did not go over well!

    Oh my word. It is the most confused mess out there. I think the fallout is going to be horrible over time. It is psuedo intellectualism gone insane.

    You gotta wonder what he does with the whole “separation from God” thing?

  310. And on page 21, point 9, he writes:

    The triune relationships of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit cause us to marvel at the authority-submission structure that exists eternally in the three Person in the Godhead, each of whom is equally and fully God. An authority-submission structure marks the vary nature of the eternal Being for the one who is three. In this authority-submission structure, the three Persons understand the rightful place each has. The Father possesses the place of supreme authority, and the Son is the eternal Son of the eternal Father. As such, the Son submits to the Father just as the Father, as eternal Father of the eternal Son, exercises authority over the Son . And the Spirit submits to both the Father and the Son. This hierarchical structure of authority exists in the eternal Godhead even though it is also eternally true that each Person is fully equal to each other in their commonly possessed essence. The implications are both manifold and wondrous as we ponder this authority-submission structure which not only is accepted but is honored, cherished, and upheld within the Godhead.

    Yes, indeedy, the first thing that I marvel at when I contemplate the Triune God is the hierarchical authority-submission structure. It is coming back to me why I threw this book across the room. Men who have been saved by the Eternal Son’s sacrificial submission dare to make him less than so that they can elevate themselves. If that is not the opposite of Christ-likeness, then what is? Christ lowered himself and gave up his rights. These men elevate themselves and take the personhood of their sisters in Christ whose freedom was bought with Christ’s blood. How dare they.

  311. @ Gram3:

    And they redefine “eternal son” to make it mean what they want-subordinate. It actually denoted “equal” in the Hebrew way of thinking. That is why the Pharisees wanted to kill Jesus in John 5 for daring to call God His Father:

    “7 In his defense Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.” 18 For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.”

  312. Gram3 wrote:

    He says we should pray to the Father because Jesus is subordinate in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I urge everyone who wants to know about ESS to read Ware’s words for themselves.

    You know, I know Oneness beliefs have historically been seen as heretical, but at least they don’t negate 2/3 of the Trinity.

  313. I’ve read TWW for a while now but reading this post and all the associated links, it really hits home. I was raised Anglican but my wife is a Pentecostal. Growing up, I never heard of “church discipline”. You went to church, if you wanted to be involved you would leave a card in the collection plate. When I quit going to church as a teenager, I got more flack from my mom than the church. I used to attend my wife’s evangelical church (Assemblies of God) and I’ve shared some of the posts with her and these ideas of membership and discipline were not part of her pentecostal upbringing. I did a brief survey of evangelical churches in my area that are on the web (including my wife’s). Nearly all require some sort of membership covenant and where I’ve seen membership applications, they look like job applications. To be fair to my wife’s church, the pastor does not seem to be authoritarian but looking at the covenant, I can see where the abuse could begin with the wrong person in charge. I believe in good and evil, I do think there are things that cannot be explained in a strictly scientific universe but I have to be honest, something feels very wrong about church these days.

  314. @ BeenThereDoneThat:
    The sentences that make me ill are:

    An authority-submission structure marks the very nature of the eternal Being for the one who is three. In this authority-submission structure, the three Persons understand the rightful place each has.

    Ware defines the “very nature” of the Trinity as being hierarchy. Presumably it would be impossible for the Trinity to exist without hierarchy. What in the world does it mean for a Person of the Trinity to have a “rightful place.” How would Ware know?

    Their lust for power over others has made them mad and incapable of thinking about what they are saying about God. What Ware is describing is more like a pagan pantheon with ranks and functions.

  315. Gram3 wrote:

    Ware defines the “very nature” of the Trinity as being hierarchy.

    Doesn’t orthodox Trinity teach that the three persons of the Godhead are co-equal? At least that’s what I remember from my SBC days. You can’t have hierarchy in co-equal. Why hasn’t ESS been called out?

  316. Gram3 wrote:

    @ BeenThereDoneThat:
    The sentences that make me ill are:

    An authority-submission structure marks the very nature of the eternal Being for the one who is three. In this authority-submission structure, the three Persons understand the rightful place each has.

    Rightful Place(TM) as in?

    “We shall take our station,
    Dirt beneath his feet,
    While his hired Captains
    Jeer us in the street…”
    — Rudyard Kipling, “The Old Issue”, 1899

  317. Lydia wrote:

    Where on earth did the “stand on a stage and speak” to a large audience with no interaction come from? It is the worst possible method for the Body of Christ. Yet, many have been told the sermon is the most important event of their week. Mahaney used to say this all the time.

    And Fidel Castro acted it out with every six-hour “!Socailaismo o Muerte!” speech.

  318. Lydia wrote:

    It gets even creepier. I can remember when Bruce Ware was vascillating around on whether we should pray to Jesus or not. ‘They really do have a problem with 3 different gods in a caste system trinity.

    Boots on Faces all the way down.

  319. BeenThereDoneThat wrote:

    Why hasn’t ESS been called out?

    Because it is needed to get around the equal but not equal problem. So, if the Eternal Son is ontologically equal but functionally subordinate, then it must be possible to be both/and. The necessity of excluding females from church leadership is the reason that George Knight III came up with the idea of “roles” in the first place back in the 70’s. The idea of “roles” within the Trinity is ludicrous, yet you will hear young people parrot that “it has always been the orthodox teaching of the church.” If you press them, however, they fall back to Grudem who relies on Knight.

    The garbage that we are dealing with in the conservative churches was born in the 70’s as a reaction to the tremendous social changes. I can’t speak to “moderate” or “liberal” churches and the garbage that they have. But Gothardism and Reconstructionism and Shepherding and Founders Church Membership/Discipline, and Female Subordinationism are all from the 70’s in one way or another.

    I will bet there are posts over at Voices where the guys parrot ESS without having any idea where it came from. But it is all that has been taught by the power brokers. Millard Erickson, who is a conservative Southern Baptist theolgian, has written against it, but Grudem and Piper have so poisoned the well that you cannot get younger people steeped in this to consider anything else.

  320. Gram3 wrote:

    Ware defines the “very nature” of the Trinity as being hierarchy. Presumably it would be impossible for the Trinity to exist without hierarchy.

    However, remember that the subordination that is being defined here is not ontological. Thus, it is not the same subordinationism that has been held heretical by most of orthodox Christianity for 1500 years.
    I do not understand how someone is by their “very nature” subordinate and is at the same time not ontologically subordinate.

  321. Gram3 wrote:

    What Ware is describing is more like a pagan pantheon with ranks and functions.

    Seems more like blatant heresy to me, but what do I know.

  322. BeenThereDoneThat wrote:

    Why hasn’t ESS been called out?

    This is a very good question. Some have tried but the power and concentration of the ESS guys is massive. Ware even edits a quote by Anthanasius in order to “prove” ESS is Orthodox. It is unbelievable what people are buying into out there.

    I was booted off sgmsurvivors for disagreeing about ESS. That was the LAST place I expected to see it. I think the ESS proponents were very sly about how they brought this in. It really started in seminaries like SBTS and they don’t just go out and announce they are ESS proponents. They slip it in as they go. They parrot what they were taught and it is not always clear. For example, they would start with the incarnation. Most people nod and agree Jesus was taking orders from God during His incarnation. They don’t stop and think about what that means eternity past and future about God. Then there is the language of “Father/Son” which denotes a hierarchical relationship TO US.

    They also do not acknowledge that the NT has quite a few examples of the Trinity doing the same things. Who raised Jesus? You have Jesus saying He will raise this Temple…. In ACts we have the FAther raising Jesus and also the Holy Spirit is referred to as raising Jesus. There are other examples that are quite interesting interesting.

    But the OT is really interesting when you get into ESS. A good place to start is the Shema. The one true God. And then think of who is the Lord of Hosts? And so on. it is really fascinating to read about this.

    They win this debate just like all the other ones. They dismiss you as being a Oneness heretic. Just like non Cals are accused of being Pelagians and those who disagree are attacking and hateful.

  323. @ Gram3:

    Cheryl Schatz did a great DVD on ESS. She recogized it right away because she had a ministry to the cults of JW and Mormons and they similar problems with the trinity. It really is that heretical. But it also fits with the whole cosmic child (son is lesser) abuse theory of PSA. “God would not save Jesus from the Cross “type of thinking. Jesus obeyed orders.

  324. ONe more thing…recently a Calvinist was trying to convince me of the two wills of God. His illustration was that God told us not to murder in the Law but then God condones murder of His Son. That is an example of the two wills.

    It is very dark and confused out there, folks. I fall asleep remembering a simple Kenyan song about Jesus I learned from a raspy voiced Kenyan pastor.

  325. Lydia wrote:

    They dismiss you as being a Oneness heretic.

    That’s ridiculous. I was Oneness for 23 years. (I’m a work in progress now.) God in three, co-equal persons is not Oneness. Oneness is like saying that Gram3 three is a wife, a mother, and a grandmother, but she is one person. That’s the short version.

  326. Will M wrote:

    However, remember that the subordination that is being defined here is not ontological.

    They say it is not ontological but functional. But they are talking in ontological terms if they are saying that the Son is the Son because the Son is subordinate and the Father is the Father because he is in authority over the Son and Holy Spirit. They are using ontological categories when they say that the Son could not be the Son unless he is subordinate to the Father. They are saying that the Father could not be the Father unless he is the Supreme Authority. They say they are merely talking about function, but when you define a person the way they are defining a person, that is ontology and not merely function.

  327. dee wrote:

    Lydia wrote:
    I think you’re right. In fact, I think the gift of authority always runs the risk of abuse. I
    This has raised a question for me. Many have commented that discipline is good and sometimes abuse occurs. When I see the aftermath of abuse, the person is changed developing little respect for the church, having mental health issues, etc.In Karen’s case, no one but two pastors came to her to ask for forgiveness.
    The abused person is the left out in the cold. I was shocked how few people from TVC every tried to help out Karen in the aftermath.
    When abuse occurs, the abused person is quickly forgotten, and I think this is on purpose. There are lifelong ramifications for abusing someone. I think it would be far better to put a hold on discipline and start really loving the people in the church. Right now, we are playing games.

    As I said up thread, I think some of the folks over there on that Voices site make excuses for the misuse and abuse of implementing 9Marx discipline. Of course abuse is going to occur but heaven forbid we let go of our sacred cow of 9Marx discipline. Compare that thinking of *Yeah, we know they’ll be some collateral damage from our disciplinary method but sorry folks, that’s just the way it works.* to Jesus’ teaching on the shepherd leaving the 99 sheep to go after the 1 lost sheep. That one lost sheep – every lost sheep is precious in God’s eyes. On the other hand, that one abused victim is of little to no concern to these 9Marx NeoCals. It’s gonna happen so just accept the bare bone facts. Of course, if any ONE of them was on the receiving end of such abuse, I how they would feel. Sigh….

  328. roebuck wrote:

    Gram3 wrote:
    What Ware is describing is more like a pagan pantheon with ranks and functions.
    Seems more like blatant heresy to me, but what do I know.

    Well, yes, and it reminds me of Paul when he talked about men who come with their clever speech to lead people astray. For most people, an appeal to Grudem or Piper is decisive, and if there were ever two people who use clever speech to hide what they are really saying, it is these, at least in the conservative church.

    For these people, Power is their paradigm for relationships. That is why I say that the Female Subordination issue is merely a subset of a much bigger problem. The notion of a clergy hierarchy, as we have seen with Karen Hinkley and Todd Wilhelm is another subset of this problem. It is a pagan paradigm which the God of Abraham shattered and which Jesus of Nazareth finished on the Cross. Yet these men want to keep pagan religious ideas alive in the Christian church. That is why they have a coercive vision of soteriology as well, IMO. Everything is framed by relative power and the exercise of power.

    You can see it in John Piper’s policewoman fiasco. His feeling of manhood is determined by relative power. If a police officer is a woman, she emasculates him merely because of the power differential. A marriage cannot be based in mutual love and respect. It must be grounded by a power differential. They have no concept of a Trinity that is essentially mutual indwelling from love and which is not essentially a hierarchy.

  329. Lydia wrote:

    I was booted off sgmsurvivors for disagreeing about ESS. That was the LAST place I expected to see it.

    I remember that ruling at Survivors, and I was shocked as well. I could not understand why she did not see that the abuse that happened at SGM was grounded in a flawed doctrine of God. I don’t remember her reasoning, but only that she refused to allow discussion of that particular issue for some reason.

  330. Velour wrote:

    Will M wrote:
    I appreciate your input, but on this you are just flat out wrong. The whole Leeman, Dever, 9Marks thing is about saying who is in and who is out. They see themselves as God’s arbiters here on earth. Now at the end of their articles, they will say that Christ is the ultimate arbiter, but those statements are in conflict with what they have just said. It is easy to go on the internet and find Leemans’s statement on membership, the keys, etc. Here is a statement from Leeman straight from the 9Marks website:
    Conservative Christian elders I know in Europe (40+ years as elders) are alarmed by 9Marks/Acts 29 and all of these un-Biblical things being done in American churches, including excommunications and shunnings, banning people from attending church services, etc. for the slightest dissent and exercise of Christian conscience (and no gross sexual immorality).

    Well they should be closing the borders then. American Christianity is an exporter.

  331. Lydia wrote:

    @ Darlene:
    Calvin believed that correct doctrine trumped righteousness. In fact, his ST teaches that “righteousness is imputed” (done for us) when we are chosen and remain wicked. In effect there is no synergistic sanctifacation. As in growing in Holiness. Which is strange because Jesus tells people to be perfect (as in mature and completed). But look at how many say ‘that is impossible’ so don’t even try!
    I think the biggest problem is that Calvin keeps us stuck at the cross. There is not really any “Good News” without the resurrection which means New Life. New creations in Christ.
    WE are to reflect “Christ in us” back out into the world.
    For some reason many have bought into the idea that behavior does not matter in the Christian journey. I believe John touches on this with “walking in the light” and “walking in darkness’. He even calls sin “lawlessness”. Jesus called the Pharisee “lawless”. And this does not mean we are under Mosaic law. It does mean we are to govern ourselves with the help of the Holy Spirit with the law of love…which includes justice, mercy, compassion, truth, etc.
    Calvin had a ton of rotten fruit in both his teaching and his behavior. He encouraged and implemented a lot of cruelty to a lot of people. And he had very willing accomplices with the council.

    The reason they buy into behavior does not matter is because of their teaching on the inherited alien righteousness of Christ. The teaching is: When God looks at them, He doesn’t really see them anymore, but they are covered in Christ’s alien righteousness. Therefore, no matter what they do, they are secure in this righteousness which will NEVER be taken away from them. And, if they are convinced that they are one of the elect, then nothing that they do can effect their salvation. And furthermore, obedience, while it is a good virtue, is not a requirement for the Christian because Christ already obeyed FOR them. And this is what they mean when they say, “It is finished.” Anything that they would *do* (that nasty word) would be considered works and adding to the finished work of Christ and nullifying their salvation. It’s a tied up neat little package – once they’re justified – their home free and bound for heaven no matter what. What would be the point in co-operating with God when to do so or not do so will not change the outcome?

    I call all of this kind of thinking/teaching trying to play hide and seek with God. Hey, God doesn’t really see me when I sin, He see’s Jesus and I’m covered by Him.

  332. Miller is really controlling that thread. DL Payton keeps posting that he keeps asking the question which is basically “what’s the big deal, leave the church, they can’t really do anything to you if you leave.” Payton or Patton whatever assumes people are refusing to answer him. Methinks Miller doesn’t want that answer to see the light of day.

  333. Gram3 wrote:

    For these people, Power is their paradigm for relationships.

    ^sigh* Shouldn’t it be so simple and sweet? – you know, the Gospels, the Good News. Why must people twist it, and use it for power games. I have to be honest – I simply do not understand.

    I love Jesus. I love his words/life/teachings in Gospels, which I have read many many times over the past several decades. I don’t see how people spin the weird doctrines that they do. And I really truly don’t understand how people put up with this garbage. I think I am a simpleton.

  334. Abi Miah wrote:

    Velour wrote:

    Will M wrote:
    I appreciate your input, but on this you are just flat out wrong. The whole Leeman, Dever, 9Marks thing is about saying who is in and who is out. They see themselves as God’s arbiters here on earth. Now at the end of their articles, they will say that Christ is the ultimate arbiter, but those statements are in conflict with what they have just said. It is easy to go on the internet and find Leemans’s statement on membership, the keys, etc. Here is a statement from Leeman straight from the 9Marks website:
    Conservative Christian elders I know in Europe (40+ years as elders) are alarmed by 9Marks/Acts 29 and all of these un-Biblical things being done in American churches, including excommunications and shunnings, banning people from attending church services, etc. for the slightest dissent and exercise of Christian conscience (and no gross sexual immorality).

    Well they should be closing the borders then. American Christianity is an exporter.

    Agreed. The Acts29 un-Biblical authoritarian control is spreading around the world as we have heard from posters here who live in countries around the globe.

  335. Gram3 wrote:

    js wrote:
    And yes, even women can share their experiences in the assembly (gasp).
    Are they allowed to share what God teaches in the Bible? How do your elders determine if she is “teaching” the men when she shares her testimony? What if she quotes the Bible in her testimony and gives the men a polluted understanding of what the Bible means, due to being female and all that?

    I am convinced Complementarianism is learned helplessness for the woman. She observes that her husband is going to blow his entire paycheck, and she sweetly says, “Hon, I don’t think that’s such a good idea.” He says, “I the Servant/Leader and God has given me the FINAL say.” So she quietly submits and they don’t pay their bills. Soon, his poor financial decisions cause them to be in deep debt and their house suffers a foreclosure. But remember, she is to submit and give him the FINAL say in ALL things. You could apply this to EVERY SINGLE ASPECT of a marriage, and what it boils down to his shutting the woman up and suppressing the gifts that God has given her. She has more financial knowledge and wisdom than her husband – it doesn’t matter. She is to submit to his final decisions. She has more wisdom in raising the children. Doesn’t matter. He makes the final decisions. She has more talent in interior design and how to decorate the home. It doesn’t matter. He makes the final decisions. One could even say that according to this Comp. teaching – be submissive in all things means the husband has every right to tell his wife how to dress, how to wear her hair, whether or not to wear make-up. So in the end, the wife really becomes a Stepford wife – suppressing her natural ability to actually use her own mind.

  336. @ Darlene:
    It is mind boggling. That is why child molestation WHILE you are a believer is no different than yelling at your kids while you are a believer. Hey, all covered by Jesus. You know, He hung on the cross so we can sin all we want and since we all deserve wrath, God does not see any sins differently. No new life. No new creation here and now. That is for eternal life only. Here we are just to go along as sinners. Just say sorry and pretend it never happened. And if you do not forgive right way, YOU the victim, are the real sinner. It is fatalism. What was the point of the cross/resurrection in this scenerio?

    Here is what gets me about this doctrine, they totally disregard some really horrible heinous actions/behaviors. But pull out the big sin card when one does not submit to their “care”. How can people like this be trusted with any semblance of basic fairness and justice?

  337. Jack wrote:

    I’ve read TWW for a while now but reading this post and all the associated links, it really hits home. I was raised Anglican but my wife is a Pentecostal. Growing up, I never heard of “church discipline”. You went to church, if you wanted to be involved you would leave a card in the collection plate. When I quit going to church as a teenager, I got more flack from my mom than the church. I used to attend my wife’s evangelical church (Assemblies of God) and I’ve shared some of the posts with her and these ideas of membership and discipline were not part of her pentecostal upbringing. I did a brief survey of evangelical churches in my area that are on the web (including my wife’s). Nearly all require some sort of membership covenant and where I’ve seen membership applications, they look like job applications. To be fair to my wife’s church, the pastor does not seem to be authoritarian but looking at the covenant, I can see where the abuse could begin with the wrong person in charge. I believe in good and evil, I do think there are things that cannot be explained in a strictly scientific universe but I have to be honest, something feels very wrong about church these days.

    Hi Jack,

    Please don’t sign a church membership covenant – EVER! I don’t care how many Scripture verses they put on that piece of paper. It is a legal document, they wrest control of your life from you, they can control any aspect of your life, it is the abusive Shepherding Movement from the 1970’s back in new language, and is un-Biblical!

    Here is (conservative Baptist) pastor Wade Burleson’s article about why people should say “no” to church membership covenants:
    http://www.wadeburleson.org/2015/05/five-reasons-to-say-no-to-church.html

  338. Lydia wrote:

    @ Bill M:

    I have a burka someone brought me from Afghanistan I can wear for a submissive disguise. :o)

    More importantly, can you sew? We need a whole bunch of them made with the words “Hotel California” sewn on them. I will be selling them with my other NeoCal wares at the big, upcoming Church Discipline conference with all of the *big name defenders*. I am sure will snap of these items to make their wives and daughters *more submissive*.

    I call this the Shehad line of NeoCal clothing for the NeoCal’s War on Women.
    (“Shehad was invented by a man named Brad and posted over at Julie Anne’s Spiritual Sounding Board. “She”, the pronoun, + had, sounds like Jihad.)

    Signed,

    Velour,
    Product Development
    at Shehad/Hotel California

    (of course if you’re a NeoCal woman you’re a woman you’re permitted to surf in a NeoCal Shehad Burka!) I am seeking endorsements from Pope John Piper and Pope Mark Dever, but Cardinal Jonathan Leeman will do.

  339. Lydia wrote:

    DAve Miller writes:

    “The church was built by those who stood for their convictions at the point of death. They did not write anonymous screeds to protect themselves from the consequences of their words.”

    The book of Hebrews?

    (I cannot comment there)

    The ass dropping truth bombs on Balaam wasn’t named either.

    Now it’s my spirit animal.

  340. Gram3 wrote:

    Will M wrote:

    However, remember that the subordination that is being defined here is not ontological.
    Precisely!
    They say it is not ontological but functional. But they are talking in ontological terms if they are saying that the Son is the Son because the Son is subordinate and the Father is the Father because he is in authority over the Son and Holy Spirit. They are using ontological categories when they say that the Son could not be the Son unless he is subordinate to the Father. They are saying that the Father could not be the Father unless he is the Supreme Authority. They say they are merely talking about function, but when you define a person the way they are defining a person, that is ontology and not merely function.

  341. Will M wrote:

    Gram3 wrote:

    Will M wrote:

    However, remember that the subordination that is being defined here is not ontological.
    Precisely!
    They say it is not ontological but functional. But they are talking in ontological terms if they are saying that the Son is the Son because the Son is subordinate and the Father is the Father because he is in authority over the Son and Holy Spirit. They are using ontological categories when they say that the Son could not be the Son unless he is subordinate to the Father. They are saying that the Father could not be the Father unless he is the Supreme Authority. They say they are merely talking about function, but when you define a person the way they are defining a person, that is ontology and not merely function.

    Oops got the precisely in the wrong place. You are 100% correct. This is another way the NeoCals use words that do not mean what they mean to everybody else.

  342. Lydia wrote:

    @ Darlene:
    It is mind boggling. That is why child molestation WHILE you are a believer is no different than yelling at your kids while you are a believer. Hey, all covered by Jesus. You know, He hung on the cross so we can sin all we want and since we all deserve wrath, God does not see any sins differently. No new life. No new creation here and now. That is for eternal life only. Here we are just to go along as sinners. Just say sorry and pretend it never happened. And if you do not forgive right way, YOU the victim, are the real sinner. It is fatalism. What was the point of the cross/resurrection in this scenerio?

    Here is what gets me about this doctrine, they totally disregard some really horrible heinous actions/behaviors. But pull out the big sin card when one does not submit to their “care”. How can people like this be trusted with any semblance of basic fairness and justice?

    But it’s not just the sin-leveling, it’s the fact that the NeoCals believe that because they are men they are superior to women.

  343. Will M wrote:

    I cannot figure out the role of the Holy Spirit in the NeoCalvinism either.

    If you listen to New Calvinst sermon podcasts (I do), you will hear a LOT about “God”, only occasional mention of Jesus, and hardly a word about the Holy Spirit.

  344. Will M wrote:

    Gram3 wrote:
    Ware defines the “very nature” of the Trinity as being hierarchy. Presumably it would be impossible for the Trinity to exist without hierarchy.
    However, remember that the subordination that is being defined here is not ontological. Thus, it is not the same subordinationism that has been held heretical by most of orthodox Christianity for 1500 years.
    I do not understand how someone is by their “very nature” subordinate and is at the same time not ontologically subordinate.

    How do these clowns make this “subordination within the trinity” fit to the Nicene creed?? Are they writing a “new creed”? The Nicene creed:

    We believe in one God,
    the Father, the Almighty,
    maker of heaven and earth,
    of all that is, seen and unseen.

    We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
    the only son of God,
    eternally begotten of the Father,
    God from God, Light from Light,
    true God from true God,
    begotten, not made,
    of one being with the Father.
    Through him all things were made.
    For us and for our salvation
    he came down from heaven:
    by the power of the Holy Spirit
    he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,
    and was made man.
    For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
    he suffered death and was buried.
    On the third day he rose again
    in accordance with the Scriptures;
    he ascended into heaven
    and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
    He will come again in glory
    to judge the living and the dead,
    and his kingdom will have no end.

    We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
    who proceeds from the Father [and the Son].
    With the Father and the Son
    he is worshipped and glorified.
    He has spoken through the Prophets.
    We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
    We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
    We look for the resurrection of the dead,
    and the life of the world to come. AMEN.

  345. I’ve been following the SBCVoices thread on church discipline. They definitely attacked SKIJ and Lydia. I also think Tarheel was a bit condescending towards Dee. (BTW, why doesn’t Tarheel give his real name???) Comments by women on SBCVoices are not very common. I don’t know if women just don’t comment very often, or if our comments are just not posted.

    **I made a comment on the discipline article, but Dave Miller did not post my comment. I asked if anyone wondered why Karen Hinkley was disciplined while Jordan was not. I said that the Hinkley marriage was based from the get-go on the lies, deceit, and criminal pedophilia activity by Jordan Hinkley. TVC tried to force Karen to stay in that relationship, and put her under church discipline when she asked for an annulment. Why was it appropriate to discipline the wife and not the pedophile?**

    This “shepherding” stuff has been going on in the SBC for decades. “The Lord is my shepherd …” does not apply to me. You see, I am a married woman. Wives are told to graciously submit to the leadership of their husbands in all things, while the husband is told to lead, protect, and provide for the wife. That makes my husband my shepherd.

    This push for church discipline is just a push for hierarchical control, with women at the bottom.
    “Hotel California”??? Hey y’all, not only can I sew —- I have an embroidery machine. I’m more into “Already Gone”, though. Love the Eagles!

  346. @ Max:
    Nothing about the Power of the Cross or the Work of the Cross. The Holy Spirit seems to have no purpose after what they term regeneration. Some of the neoCal blogs love to go after people who feel like they get messages from God as in “I just felt God leading me to ….” They declare that outside the Bible God doesn’t ever speak. I feel sad if they’ve never felt the Spirit’s presence or they’ve never had a “God moment” where they could see clearly God speaking to them. Understand I’m not saying that God is giving me some spiritual message that surpasses the Bible but I’ve had times where God has impressed upon my heart to call someone or perhaps to go somewhere on a certain day and they’ve have proven to be “divine appointments.”

  347. Nancy2 wrote:

    I’ve been following the SBCVoices thread on church discipline. They definitely attacked SKIJ and Lydia. I also think Tarheel was a bit condescending towards Dee. (BTW, why doesn’t Tarheel give his real name???) Comments by women on SBCVoices are not very common. I don’t know if women just don’t comment very often, or if our comments are just not posted.

    **I made a comment on the discipline article, but Dave Miller did not post my comment. I asked if anyone wondered why Karen Hinkley was disciplined while Jordan was not. I said that the Hinkley marriage was based from the get-go on the lies, deceit, and criminal pedophilia activity by Jordan Hinkley. TVC tried to force Karen to stay in that relationship, and put her under church discipline when she asked for an annulment. Why was it appropriate to discipline the wife and not the pedophile?**

    This “shepherding” stuff has been going on in the SBC for decades. “The Lord is my shepherd …” does not apply to me. You see, I am a married woman. Wives are told to graciously submit to the leadership of their husbands in all things, while the husband is told to lead, protect, and provide for the wife. That makes my husband my shepherd.

    This push for church discipline is just a push for hierarchical control, with women at the bottom.
    “Hotel California”??? Hey y’all, not only can I sew —- I have an embroidery machine. I’m more into “Already Gone”, though. Love the Eagles!

    Welcome to the club of those whose comments Dave Miller wouldn’t post over at SBC Voices. He did the same to two of my posts.

    You can embroider? With a machine? That would be absolutely lovely for The Hotel California burkas that I will need to sell at the upcoming Church Discipline conference along with all of my other NeoCal wares: kindling for burning folks, stockades, etc.

    I am hoping the burkas will be made in time to have them officially blessed by one of the popes, say Pope John Piper or Pope Mark Dever. Those will sell for more at the Church Discipline conference.

    Would you be available to model one?

  348. Velour wrote:

    Welcome to the club of those whose comments Dave Miller wouldn’t post over at SBC Voices. He did the same to two of my posts.
    You can embroider? With a machine? That would be absolutely lovely for The Hotel California burkas that I will need to sell at the upcoming Church Discipline conference along with all of my other NeoCal wares: kindling for burning folks, stockades, etc.
    I am hoping the burkas will be made in time to have them officially blessed by one of the popes, say Pope John Piper or Pope Mark Dever. Those will sell for more at the Church Discipline conference.
    Would you be available to model one?

    I will model a burka, but only if I can embroider “Already Gone” on mine, beginning with a big red letter A! I would hate to see all of my work go up in smoke, but after the conference, can we have a weenie/marshmallow roast over stockades, kindling, and blazing burkas?

  349. Lydia wrote:

    many have been told the sermon is the most important event of their week.

    Have you ever attended service in an old church where the pastor had to take a flight of stairs to get to the preaching pulpit which was situated on the side, and above? Like this:

    http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1LQP6BzNPuo/ULkip_belnI/AAAAAAAAAWk/oRu1Q68Z7e0/s1600/pulpit.jpg

    Took a while, walking across, unclipping the braid, taking the steps, and setting out the sermon notes while everyone watched. God speaketh from above woohooo

  350. @ Jeffrey J Chalmers:
    They do it with clever language. Like eternally functionally subordinate. Which somehow means equal in power and glory. They focus on the distinction between the Persons, but limit the distinction between the persons to relative authority. The fact is that we do not know how the Persons of the Trinity inter-relate. All we know is that the Eternal Son laid aside the glory which was his, did not grasp his glory but descended to be incarnated in a virgin’s womb in fulfillment of the Promises. He fully obeyed the Father *and* he was in perfect unity with the Father.

    In contrast, these men are grasping at power which is *not* theirs, and they are robbing their sisters in Christ of the dignity Christ restored to them as new creations. These men want to cling to the Fallen Order of male supremacy when Christ came and died and rose again so that male and female can be reconciled just like Jew and Gentile, slave and free, and God and man. They are dividing people that Christ came to reconcile and are putting people into bondage that Christ has made free.

    In the church, they have replaced the Holy Spirit with their System of roles and rules and Order. If we have the mind of Christ and are seeking to be conformed to him, their laws and rules and Order of roles is as obsolete as the Mosaic Covenant was after the curtain was torn. Why people want to stay in the Old Creation is beyond my understanding unless it is because they like their status more than being one in Christ.

  351. Celia wrote:

    They declare that outside the Bible God doesn’t ever speak.

    Ever had experience with Calvary Chapel? They lean towards Arminianism and also believe that God has nothing to say to you unless it comes from the Bible. They are just as stultifying as any Neocal outfit on the block, just with a different panoply of doctrinal beliefs.

  352. @ Patrice:

    What a beautiful old Church! I so admire the craftsmanship that went into the working of all that hardwood. I’ve seen some absolutely gorgeous Synagogues in my time too. They are all from a time before the world had moved on.

  353. Gram3 wrote:

    In contrast, these men are grasping at power which is *not* theirs, and they are robbing their sisters in Christ of the dignity Christ restored to them as new creations. These men want to cling to the Fallen Order of male supremacy when Christ came and died and rose again so that male and female can be reconciled just like Jew and Gentile, slave and free, and God and man. They are dividing people that Christ came to reconcile and are putting people into bondage that Christ has made free.

    At my former authoritarian NeoCal church the senior pastor/elder would tell a member point blank that they weren’t “to bring an accusation against an elder without cause”. The elders intentionally made sure that a church member could not have a witness, and if the the church member defended themself, the senior pastor would immediately say, “You are bringing an accusation against an elder without cause.” I had an elder want information from me about my work place’s clients, legally protected information that I can’t divulge, for his own business opportunities. When I said that it was illegal and protected information I was accused of “bringing an accusation against an elder without cause”. Sick, sick, sick.

  354. js wrote:

    There is a place for CBE and for CBMW in my book, so long as neither makes the mistake of saying the gospel IS complementarianism or the gospel IS egalitarianism.

    Even when the CBMW promotes such obvious theological nonsense as the Eternal Subordination of the Son? That’s not the same mistake as saying “the gospel is complementarianism”, but it’s a pretty big one.

  355. Velour wrote:

    I had an elder want information from me about my work place’s clients, legally protected information that I can’t divulge, for his own business opportunities. When I said that it was illegal and protected information I was accused of “bringing an accusation against an elder without cause”. Sick, sick, sick.

    Where on earth is that former church of yours, Velour? Somewhere in the Twilight Zone? Sheesh…

  356. Serving Kids In Japan wrote:

    Velour wrote:

    I had an elder want information from me about my work place’s clients, legally protected information that I can’t divulge, for his own business opportunities. When I said that it was illegal and protected information I was accused of “bringing an accusation against an elder without cause”. Sick, sick, sick.

    Where on earth is that former church of yours, Velour? Somewhere in the Twilight Zone? Sheesh…

    Northern California, otherwise known as the new Saudi Arabia.

  357. Breaking news! Hot off the 9Marks press is this article: http://9marks.org/article/should-christians-disown-gay-sons-and-daughters/
    For those not wishing to follow the link, Leeman answers in the negative. I’d also like to excerpt a few phrases from their proper context for your enlightenment:
    “cannot remain in good standing in a local church”
    “the authorization of the keys of the kingdom”
    “lovingly deny them membership in a church, should they want it”
    “does not share in the new covenant institution of the church”
    “someone who continues to call him or herself a “Christian” after being excommunicated”
    “she loves him utterly and that she supports the church’s decision to exclude him”
    Maybe one unanswered question is— Must a local church discipline/disown a gay member– after they’ve already left?

  358. js wrote:

    As of this point our church does not allow women elders in line with the church’s agreement with the Baptist Faith and Message 2000.

    js, this statement needs some clarification.

    From section VI – The Church, of the BFM 2000:

    Each congregation operates under the Lordship of Christ through democratic processes. In such a congregation each member is responsible and accountable to Christ as Lord. Its scriptural officers are pastors and deacons. While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.

    The term “Elder” is not found in the BFM 2000. If you mean “elder” as “pastor”, then your church is in agreement with the BFM 2000.

    I admit that I am old (54), but in my experience “elders” are what Presbyterians have. I had never heard of an elder in a Southern Baptist Church until the Neo-Cals came along. As for “Deacon” (which is basically an elder in most SBC churches I know of) women are allowed to serve in many churches as determined by the individual church. Plus, the Wake Forest Demon Elders just doesn’t have a good ring to it.

    I am a first time poster here, but I have posted at SBC Voices. From my experience, Dave Miller does have a very thin skin, which is the only thing thin about him.

  359. Velour wrote:

    Lydia wrote:
    I have a burka someone brought me from Afghanistan I can wear for a submissive disguise. :o)

    More importantly, can you sew? We need a whole bunch of them made with the words “Hotel California” sewn on them.

    Maybe Dee can offer these through the side business she proposed a few weeks ago. They might be a good seller along with the pastor certificates and theo-illogical diplomas.

  360. js wrote:

    When a congregation, acting in obedience to Matthew 18 and 1 Corinthians 5, by mutual decision, excludes someone from the local church, are you saying they are acting as sinful mediators between the believer and Christ? The congregation is individual Christians acting collectively to exclude a member.

    For example, if you had an unrepentant Jordan Root in your congregation, how would your congregation deal with him in a way that did not make you into sinful mediators?

    JS, the concept of excluding a member from participating in fellowship (for a good reason) has nothing to do with acting as mediators on Christ’s behalf. There is nothing, in the Bible or in secular law, preventing us from refusing to associate with someone whose presence is emotionally harmful or physically dangerous. That’s a matter of self-preservation and emotional well-being, not pronouncing judgement or sitting on the Great White Throne.

    The proper way to deal with an unrepentant “Jordan Root” is likely to report him to the authorities, file a restraining order, inform all members who he is and why he can’t stay, and inform him that he won’t be welcome until he cleans up his act. (Did I leave anything out?) In this case, the congregation is not “playing God” or acting as mediators between God and a dangerous man. They are simply protecting themselves and, most importantly, their children.

  361. Nancy2 wrote:

    Velour wrote:

    Welcome to the club of those whose comments Dave Miller wouldn’t post over at SBC Voices. He did the same to two of my posts.
    You can embroider? With a machine? That would be absolutely lovely for The Hotel California burkas that I will need to sell at the upcoming Church Discipline conference along with all of my other NeoCal wares: kindling for burning folks, stockades, etc.
    I am hoping the burkas will be made in time to have them officially blessed by one of the popes, say Pope John Piper or Pope Mark Dever. Those will sell for more at the Church Discipline conference.
    Would you be available to model one?

    I will model a burka, but only if I can embroider “Already Gone” on mine, beginning with a big red letter A! I would hate to see all of my work go up in smoke, but after the conference, can we have a weenie/marshmallow roast over stockades, kindling, and blazing burkas?

    Nancy2,

    Yes, my dear seamstress, of course you can embroider a scarlet “A” [for Already Gone] on your NeoCal burka. But alas, I would not want to have you placed under “church discipline” being that the Big NeoCal Popes/Big Boyz will be there.

    I am game for a campfire and FREEDOM songs and roasted marshmallows and all. But I think that the NeoCal Popes will be taking the Burkas home for their wives with new instructions on how to be *more submissive* and there won’t be any left to burn.

    I think this is a good Freedom song, The Staples Singers’ “Respect Yourself”.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oab4ZCfTbOI

  362. Bill M wrote:

    Velour wrote:

    Lydia wrote:
    I have a burka someone brought me from Afghanistan I can wear for a submissive disguise. :o)

    More importantly, can you sew? We need a whole bunch of them made with the words “Hotel California” sewn on them.

    Maybe Dee can offer these through the side business she proposed a few weeks ago. They might be a good seller along with the pastor certificates and theo-illogical diplomas.

    Exactly! Diplomas from CHEESY (our theo-illogical NeoCal diploma mill in South Yonkers) and a whole line of Hotel California products to KEEP THE LITTLE PEOPLE IN LINE! Especially the girls!

  363. Serving Kids In Japan wrote:

    js wrote:

    When a congregation, acting in obedience to Matthew 18 and 1 Corinthians 5, by mutual decision, excludes someone from the local church, are you saying they are acting as sinful mediators between the believer and Christ? The congregation is individual Christians acting collectively to exclude a member.

    For example, if you had an unrepentant Jordan Root in your congregation, how would your congregation deal with him in a way that did not make you into sinful mediators?

    JS, the concept of excluding a member from participating in fellowship (for a good reason) has nothing to do with acting as mediators on Christ’s behalf. There is nothing, in the Bible or in secular law, preventing us from refusing to associate with someone whose presence is emotionally harmful or physically dangerous. That’s a matter of self-preservation and emotional well-being, not pronouncing judgement or sitting on the Great White Throne.

    The proper way to deal with an unrepentant “Jordan Root” is likely to report him to the authorities, file a restraining order, inform all members who he is and why he can’t stay, and inform him that he won’t be welcome until he cleans up his act. (Did I leave anything out?) In this case, the congregation is not “playing God” or acting as mediators between God and a dangerous man. They are simply protecting themselves and, most importantly, their children.

    But as we have seen, that rarely happens. In fact, I was banned from church property for reporting the pastors/elders friend a convicted Megan’s List sex offender to his supervising law enforcement agency after watching him run his hands through my friends’ young son’s hair (parents had no idea the man was a convicted sex offender who had served prison time and was touching their young boy). I received threats from my pastors/elders in person and by phone.

    The Megan’s List sex offender? He was given a position of leadership and trust!

    Prior to my being banned from church property, a good doctor was excommunicated and shunned and also banned from church property. His *crime*? Disagreeing with the pastors/elders in private about how they were running the church and using The Bible.

  364. Dave A A wrote:

    Breaking news! Hot off the 9Marks press is this article: http://9marks.org/article/should-christians-disown-gay-sons-and-daughters/
    For those not wishing to follow the link, Leeman answers in the negative. I’d also like to excerpt a few phrases from their proper context for your enlightenment:
    “cannot remain in good standing in a local church”
    “the authorization of the keys of the kingdom”
    “lovingly deny them membership in a church, should they want it”
    “does not share in the new covenant institution of the church”
    “someone who continues to call him or herself a “Christian” after being excommunicated”
    “she loves him utterly and that she supports the church’s decision to exclude him”
    Maybe one unanswered question is— Must a local church discipline/disown a gay member– after they’ve already left?

    More of the same from Jonathan Leeman. He has been drinking so much Kool-Aid that his skin has changed color. The NeoCals have nothing to teach the world, or frankly the rest of us who are Christians, about the love of Jesus Christ.

  365. Velour wrote:

    Nancy2,

    Yes, my dear seamstress, of course you can embroider a scarlet “A” [for Already Gone] on your NeoCal burka. But alas, I would not want to have you placed under “church discipline” being that the Big NeoCal Popes/Big Boyz will be there.

    I am game for a campfire and FREEDOM songs and roasted marshmallows and all. But I think that the NeoCal Popes will be taking the Burkas home for their wives with new instructions on how to be *more submissive* and there won’t be any left to burn.

    I think this is a good Freedom song, The Staples Singers’ “Respect Yourself”.

    Let’s not forget this one: “I Am Woman” by Helen Reddy. It’ll really get’em fired up. I think it would be a great theme song. (PS: I don’t just sew. I do home canning, and I’m a good shot with a pistol and a rifle! I’ve also broken 3 mules to ride. So, if you have any use for anyone with those arts at the Discipline conference …… I can pickle’em up, shoot’em up, and show’em what to kiss. I cain’t sang, though. You’ll have to do that part.)

    “I am woman, hear me roar
    In numbers too big to ignore
    And I know too much to go back an’ pretend
    ‘Cause I’ve heard it all before
    And I’ve been down there on the floor
    No one’s ever gonna keep me down again

    [chorus]
    Oh yes, I am wise
    But it’s wisdom born of pain
    Yes, I’ve paid the price
    But look how much I gained
    If I have to, I can do anything
    I am strong
    (Strong)
    I am invincible
    (Invincible)
    I am woman

    You can bend but never break me
    ‘Cause it only serves to make me
    More determined to achieve my final goal
    And I come back even stronger
    Not a novice any longer
    ‘Cause you’ve deepened the conviction in my soul

    I am woman watch me grow
    See me standing toe to toe
    As I spread my lovin’ arms across the land
    But I’m still an embryo
    With a long, long way to go
    Until I make my brother understand ….”

  366. Gram3 wrote:

    @ Jeffrey J Chalmers:
    They do it with clever language. Like eternally functionally subordinate. Which somehow means equal in power and glory. They focus on the distinction between the Persons, but limit the distinction between the persons to relative authority. The fact is that we do not know how the Persons of the Trinity inter-relate. All we know is that the Eternal Son laid aside the glory which was his, did not grasp his glory but descended to be incarnated in a virgin’s womb in fulfillment of the Promises. He fully obeyed the Father *and* he was in perfect unity with the Father.
    In contrast, these men are grasping at power which is *not* theirs, and they are robbing their sisters in Christ of the dignity Christ restored to them as new creations. These men want to cling to the Fallen Order of male supremacy when Christ came and died and rose again so that male and female can be reconciled just like Jew and Gentile, slave and free, and God and man. They are dividing people that Christ came to reconcile and are putting people into bondage that Christ has made free.
    In the church, they have replaced the Holy Spirit with their System of roles and rules and Order. If we have the mind of Christ and are seeking to be conformed to him, their laws and rules and Order of roles is as obsolete as the Mosaic Covenant was after the curtain was torn. Why people want to stay in the Old Creation is beyond my understanding unless it is because they like their status more than being one in Christ.

    Nice summary, an very scary on the part these NeoCal….. They really need to be challenged

  367. Velour wrote:

    Serving Kids In Japan wrote:
    js wrote:
    When a congregation, acting in obedience to Matthew 18 and 1 Corinthians 5, by mutual decision, excludes someone from the local church, are you saying they are acting as sinful mediators between the believer and Christ? The congregation is individual Christians acting collectively to exclude a member.

    For example, if you had an unrepentant Jordan Root in your congregation, how would your congregation deal with him in a way that did not make you into sinful mediators?
    JS, the concept of excluding a member from participating in fellowship (for a good reason) has nothing to do with acting as mediators on Christ’s behalf. There is nothing, in the Bible or in secular law, preventing us from refusing to associate with someone whose presence is emotionally harmful or physically dangerous. That’s a matter of self-preservation and emotional well-being, not pronouncing judgement or sitting on the Great White Throne.
    The proper way to deal with an unrepentant “Jordan Root” is likely to report him to the authorities, file a restraining order, inform all members who he is and why he can’t stay, and inform him that he won’t be welcome until he cleans up his act. (Did I leave anything out?) In this case, the congregation is not “playing God” or acting as mediators between God and a dangerous man. They are simply protecting themselves and, most importantly, their children.
    But as we have seen, that rarely happens. In fact, I was banned from church property for reporting the pastors/elders friend a convicted Megan’s List sex offender to his supervising law enforcement agency after watching him run his hands through my friends’ young son’s hair (parents had no idea the man was a convicted sex offender who had served prison time and was touching their young boy). I received threats from my pastors/elders in person and by phone.
    The Megan’s List sex offender? He was given a position of leadership and trust!
    Prior to my being banned from church property, a good doctor was excommunicated and shunned and also banned from church property. His *crime*? Disagreeing with the pastors/elders in private about how they were running the church and using The Bible.

    I really think, at some point, these type of church “violations” need to be made public…. As happened with the Village church. Leaders like this that are corrupt, if unwilling to be confronted privately, need to be confronted publically.

  368. @ Muff Potter:

    Yes, very beautiful. They needed this pulpits to project their voices before technology. But is sure does lend itself to “set apart”.

    I visited a very beautiful synagogue last year when my daughter was in a concert there. I was a museum! For many years they had collected artifacts from around the world and had lots of displays.. The entire place was also like a sort of historical memorial tracking the Jewish trajectory of the OT. But it was so tastefully done as to be inspiring. They also offered quite a few classes on OT history, etc. It was very interesting and we could take a page from their focus on education and art.

  369. Ken P. wrote:

    js wrote:

    As of this point our church does not allow women elders in line with the church’s agreement with the Baptist Faith and Message 2000.

    js, this statement needs some clarification.

    From section VI – The Church, of the BFM 2000:

    Each congregation operates under the Lordship of Christ through democratic processes. In such a congregation each member is responsible and accountable to Christ as Lord. Its scriptural officers are pastors and deacons. While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.

    The term “Elder” is not found in the BFM 2000. If you mean “elder” as “pastor”, then your church is in agreement with the BFM 2000.

    I admit that I am old (54), but in my experience “elders” are what Presbyterians have. I had never heard of an elder in a Southern Baptist Church until the Neo-Cals came along. As for “Deacon” (which is basically an elder in most SBC churches I know of) women are allowed to serve in many churches as determined by the individual church. Plus, the Wake Forest Demon Elders just doesn’t have a good ring to it.

    I am a first time poster here, but I have posted at SBC Voices. From my experience, Dave Miller does have a very thin skin, which is the only thing thin about him.

    I used the term elder here because that is what is most commonly used here at TWW when talking about the NeoCals. I believe the terms pastor and elder are interchangeable and we use both terms in our church, though we do not view deacons as having the function of elders/pastors. You are right that the term elder in SBC life is mostly associated with the NeoCal movement but I have found in some records I have looked at from earlier times (1800’s-early 1900’s)that Southern Baptist churches records often used the term elder rather than pastor.

  370. I know this has been discussed, but just been thinking.

    I’ve never heard the term mediator used in a Christian context other than in regard to Christ, the mediators between God and Mankind, as the the perfect man and perfect God.

    To say I’m not comfortable with how it’s been appropriated within the local church context is a huge understatement.

    Words have meanings. Connotations. Why so we need to use that word over all the actual biblical words we have that are used in the context of our dealings with fellow humans?

    At best it’s extrapolating beyond what scripture says, at worst it’s sinister and harmful. How did they get comfortable with doing this with words? How is that biblically faithful?

    Cult.

  371. Gram3 wrote:

    @ js:
    Why don’t we cut to the chase. Just outline your understanding of Paul’s entire argument, including verse 15. Or, alternatively, please outline your reasons for disregarding the rules of reason and conservative hermeneutics by asserting that you *know* what he was plainly saying in verses 11-12 while you do *not* know what he is saying in verse 15.

    I think it is disingenuous of you to charge me with inconsistency on my understanding of this passage on the basis of my admitted uncertainty about verse 15. I was simply saying I don’t know for sure what verse 15 means (and that is the case for a lot of verses in the Bible for me, there is a degree of mystery). That doesn’t mean I don’t have a leaning in verse 15 or that I hold to an absolute understanding of verses 11-12. We are all in process (hopefully) of learning.

    My argument through this passage would be broadly similar to these two treatments–

    http://djmoo.com/articles/1Tim2.pdf

    https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/commentaries/IVP-NT/1Tim/Men-Women-Worship

  372. To Gram3 and Lydia:

    Keep shouting from the housetops concerning ESS. I will do the same in my world of Christian higher education. Not all Bible colleges and seminaries teach it. :0)

    Jim G.

  373. GovPappy wrote:

    I know this has been discussed, but just been thinking.

    I’ve never heard the term mediator used in a Christian context other than in regard to Christ, the mediators between God and Mankind, as the the perfect man and perfect God.

    To say I’m not comfortable with how it’s been appropriated within the local church context is a huge understatement.

    Words have meanings. Connotations. Why so we need to use that word over all the actual biblical words we have that are used in the context of our dealings with fellow humans?

    At best it’s extrapolating beyond what scripture says, at worst it’s sinister and harmful. How did they get comfortable with doing this with words? How is that biblically faithful?

    Cult.

    Can you show me where this word is being used wrongly in NeoCal circles? I am trying to track this down. Are we equating the idea of leadership with the idea of a mediator? Is there any place for leadership in the local church, or is that part of the old covenant?

  374. Serving Kids In Japan wrote:

    js wrote:

    When a congregation, acting in obedience to Matthew 18 and 1 Corinthians 5, by mutual decision, excludes someone from the local church, are you saying they are acting as sinful mediators between the believer and Christ? The congregation is individual Christians acting collectively to exclude a member.

    For example, if you had an unrepentant Jordan Root in your congregation, how would your congregation deal with him in a way that did not make you into sinful mediators?

    JS, the concept of excluding a member from participating in fellowship (for a good reason) has nothing to do with acting as mediators on Christ’s behalf. There is nothing, in the Bible or in secular law, preventing us from refusing to associate with someone whose presence is emotionally harmful or physically dangerous. That’s a matter of self-preservation and emotional well-being, not pronouncing judgement or sitting on the Great White Throne.

    The proper way to deal with an unrepentant “Jordan Root” is likely to report him to the authorities, file a restraining order, inform all members who he is and why he can’t stay, and inform him that he won’t be welcome until he cleans up his act. (Did I leave anything out?) In this case, the congregation is not “playing God” or acting as mediators between God and a dangerous man. They are simply protecting themselves and, most importantly, their children.

    Does this congregation have leaders? Or did they simply decide to take the steps you outlined? My contention is that without leadership the congregation probably never deals with this properly. Leaders will sometimes get it wrong and sometimes try to cover up things, but I also believe they are necessary. I agree with the steps you outlined above but I am not sure how the congregation gets there without leaders who bring them together and foster the congregational decision-making process. Even in the most ideal congregational setting that would seem to be a necessity. If this is correct, would you consider these leaders to be acting as mediators. That is my hang up. In the minds of those raising this idea of mediators, at what point does right biblical leadership become sinful mediation? If you are saying there is no leadership at all in the NT, I think you have a very difficult case to make biblically.

  375. Serving Kids In Japan wrote:

    js wrote:

    There is a place for CBE and for CBMW in my book, so long as neither makes the mistake of saying the gospel IS complementarianism or the gospel IS egalitarianism.

    Even when the CBMW promotes such obvious theological nonsense as the Eternal Subordination of the Son? That’s not the same mistake as saying “the gospel is complementarianism”, but it’s a pretty big one.

    I don’t agree with ESS at all and think it is an interpretive leap that is unwarranted and potentially dangerous. But I would not say that because of promotion of this that CBMW should be shut down or should not have a voice. Let them make their points and then oppose them if you disagree. If, as TWW has shown in the past, CBMW takes in so much less money than CBE but you all say CBMW is so loud and has such a strong influence, maybe you should go to CBE and urge them to use their influence more strongly. I am sure CBE has published articles which would be considered on the edges of orthodoxy (I am just guessing here but I am thinking maybe something pro LGBT for example). But if this is the case I still don’t want their voice squelched. In the information age, that is the last thing we should do. Let these groups exist and do their work and let the chips fall where they may. That is my view.

  376. Jim G. wrote:

    To Gram3 and Lydia:

    Keep shouting from the housetops concerning ESS. I will do the same in my world of Christian higher education. Not all Bible colleges and seminaries teach it. :0)

    Jim G.

    Good to hear from you, Jim! You know the complete irony of it? I knew something was amiss with their teaching because…….of my early training in the SBC!

  377. js wrote:

    If this is correct, would you consider these leaders to be acting as mediators. That is my hang up. In the minds of those raising this idea of mediators, at what point does right biblical leadership become sinful mediation?

    No, those leaders are most certainly not mediators. They do not represent Christ to us, nor do we take their words as being His. We are all priests in Jesus’ kingdom, and we all have direct access to Him. We need no mediator other than Him.

    If any pastor or elder tried to lord it over the above process — by seeking to defy the law of the land, or to hide the truth, or by refusing to listen to those with relevant experience or knowledge — then I would say he’s overstepping, and trying to supplant the Holy Spirit in the lives and hearts of other believers. He might facilitate the decision-making matters with the congregation, by calling meetings and moderating discussion, but he can’t simply do everything on his own, or keep the flock in the dark.

    Anyone who calls himself (or herself) a leader in Christ’s kingdom is there to serve his fellow believers, not to push his own agenda, and certainly not to say whether any of them are saved.

  378. Celia wrote:

    Nothing about the Power of the Cross or the Work of the Cross. The Holy Spirit seems to have no purpose after what they term regeneration.

    Celia, my primary issue with Calvinism is the underlying soteriology defining their faith (God’s plan of salvation). To the reformed mind, regeneration (the new birth) precedes faith. They would say that a person must be born again before he believes, rather than being regenerated after he believes. Calvinists try to convince you that you are so totally depraved and spiritually dead you can’t respond with a free will to hear and believe the Gospel … to choose or reject the message of the Cross of Christ.

    As a Southern Baptist for 60+ years, this goes contrary to the belief and practice which propelled a once-great evangelistic denomination to take the Gospel to the world. If God does it all – saving some and damning others before the foundation of the world – why evangelize? Of course, a Calvinist would say that evangelism is important … but what they really mean is that they are on a mission to “harvest the elect”, rather than “save the lost.” Only the elect were predestined to be regenerated, so go rescue them. This is a soteriology which is contrary to the whole of Scripture and sacrifice of Christ for ALL men.

    Let me give you an example of how this played out in an SBC New Calvinist church plant near me. I visited on an Easter Sunday to see how the lead pastor would preach on this precious Sunday of Sundays. The young reformed pastor (age 29) treated this day no differently than others and simply continued with his multi-week sermon series in Ephesians! No message of the Cross, no mention of Jesus, no altar call, no reaching out to the lost who had ventured in. Just a mechanical delivery of Ephesians. In an earlier sermon podcast by this same “pastor”, he described a recent mission trip to West Africa. A young man from the village who had been given a Bible by a previous mission team came up to the pastor and told him he had been reading it and had some questions about John, chapter 3. He essentially asked “What must I do to be saved?” The young pastor responded “You don’t have to do anything; God’s grace has been extended to you.” No explanation of the Cross, the work of the Cross and the Power of the Cross, no sinner’s prayer, no repentance, no accepting Jesus. God help the world if such “evangelism” spreads across planet earth in the years ahead!

    What you have described in your Christian experience is a Holy Spirit-led walk of faith. The normal lifestyle of a believer should reflect a personal relationship with the living Christ, rather than a list of propositional doctrines as the essence of faith. True believers are led by Christ, not the teachings and traditions of men.

  379. @ js: Isn’t Leeman bringing this concept of human mediators into this conversation?

    How about I answer your question about my question with another question I already asked: How is using the term mediator in any other context than Christ being the only mediator between God and man biblically faithful? Leeman is playing games with words.

    “Are we equating the idea of leadership with the idea of a mediator?”

    I don’t know – are they (or you?)? Your next question seems to indicate an ingrained idea that mediator is being rightly used in context of local church leadership over members. I flatly disagree if that’s the case. What access to the Spirit do they have that I don’t have? They’re not apostles, again. I don’t need another mediator. I have the Bible, I have the Spirit.

    Why don’t we leave the idea of mediation out of it? We’re all called to endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace, not just leaders. Saying the average congregation won’t do this so leaders are needed to facilitate this is not biblical. Perhaps the average congregation won’t because they’re so used to having leaders take care of their problems for them (or not). Are we to remain babies or be grown up Christians following the word and the Spirit in them, each and every one of us?

  380. Jim G. wrote:

    To Gram3 and Lydia:
    Keep shouting from the housetops concerning ESS. I will do the same in my world of Christian higher education. Not all Bible colleges and seminaries teach it. :0)
    Jim G.

    Definitely I will keep shouting about it. It has become YRR dogma which cannot be thought about but must be accepted. I have seen a few people come out of the fog, so to speak. How this ever became accepted I will never understand, and we cannot estimate yet the damage which will result from so many of our young seminarians being steeped in it. They are disseminating it in the conservative churches with nary a peep about it. As long as The Woman Question is settled, everything else is acceptable which supports their view.

  381. js wrote:

    That is my hang up. In the minds of those raising this idea of mediators, at what point does right biblical leadership become sinful mediation? If you are saying there is no leadership at all in the NT, I think you have a very difficult case to make biblically.

    Biblical leaders lead by example an not by fiat. That is why the qualifications for leadership are spelled out as character qualities and an ability to teach sound doctrine, and that entails also refuting false doctrine. Our “leaders” in the Gospel Glitterati have so far demonstrated that they don’t have the qualifications which the Bible outlines to protect and guard the flock from hirelings nor to teach sound doctrine. Or at least sound doctrine that is not polluted by unsound doctrine. You seem to conceive of “leadership” as an office, but you cannot find such office in the Bible. It is a tradition in the church, but that does not mean it is necessary or even desirable to the operation of the church as a body.

  382. @ GovPappy:
    I think we’re having this discussion because we’re busy fitting our American idea of church into scripture, consciously or subconsciously. We have this very Catholic idea of necessary human leadership in the church ingrained in us, when I believe all it does is make us lazy and quench the Spirit in our lives. “Let the leaders deal with it. Take it to your leader.” Our growth has been stunted by this pervasive mindset.

    I’ve seen it all my life, both personally in my own heart and around me.

  383. js wrote:

    I don’t agree with ESS at all and think it is an interpretive leap that is unwarranted and potentially dangerous.

    Potentially dangerous? Are the Jehovah’s Witnesses potentially dangerous to the true Gospel or are their doctrines fatal to the true Gospel? I think you are way too charitable when we are talking about your Savior’s status in the Godhead. Is that because this is promoted by people whose other doctrines you support? IMO we should start cleaning in our own houses instead of focusing so much energy on what other people are doing. The whole log and speck thing.

    They are preaching a different gospel, and it is one based on power. That is what the pagans base their religion on. Our faith is based on giving up power, not seizing it from others made in God’s image, which is what you advocate.

  384. js wrote:

    I am sure CBE has published articles which would be considered on the edges of orthodoxy (I am just guessing here

    How does it make sense for you to say that you are sure that CBE is pushing the bounds of orthodoxy, like promoting LGBT practice, but you are simultaneously guessing about that? You haven’t read there, but you know what they teach. But you do not think that the heresy that CBMW promotes is a problem and they should not be refuted?

  385. Gram3 wrote:

    js wrote:

    I am sure CBE has published articles which would be considered on the edges of orthodoxy (I am just guessing here

    How does it make sense for you to say that you are sure that CBE is pushing the bounds of orthodoxy, like promoting LGBT practice, but you are simultaneously guessing about that? You haven’t read there, but you know what they teach. But you do not think that the heresy that CBMW promotes is a problem and they should not be refuted?

    I have read there I just haven’t gone looking for problematic articles. I am sure I could find them but I don’t have time to do that. Let me be really clear, I never, ever said CBMW shouldn’t be refuted. What I am saying is they and CBE should have the right to promote their views. Sometimes our opposition can get close to censorship and that is a mistake IMO.

  386. js wrote:

    I am sure I could find them

    How can you be sure you would find them? That kind of certainty in the absence of exhaustive knowledge is rather astounding. Are you willing to consider that you have bought the line that CBMW is selling that the only way to mutualism is via liberalism? Why don’t you start by answering the straightforward questions I asked you about how you get to your absolute position by using sound reasoning and a consistent conservative hermeneutic instead of speculating with certainty about CBE? I do not promote them because I came to my conclusions from reading the manifest idiocy coming out of CBMW whose “leaders” are misrepresenting the text, editing the text in the case of Grudem, and putting people into bondage with their doctrines of men. They are preaching another gospel.

  387. Gram3 wrote:

    js wrote:

    I don’t agree with ESS at all and think it is an interpretive leap that is unwarranted and potentially dangerous.

    Potentially dangerous? Are the Jehovah’s Witnesses potentially dangerous to the true Gospel or are their doctrines fatal to the true Gospel? I think you are way too charitable when we are talking about your Savior’s status in the Godhead. Is that because this is promoted by people whose other doctrines you support? IMO we should start cleaning in our own houses instead of focusing so much energy on what other people are doing. The whole log and speck thing.

    They are preaching a different gospel, and it is one based on power. That is what the pagans base their religion on. Our faith is based on giving up power, not seizing it from others made in God’s image, which is what you advocate.

    I’m just not sure it has nearly as much traction as you think it does. My church has lots of Reformed people. I doubt any of them believe ESS and I’m sure many have never heard of it. You see a domino effect that to be comp is to believe ESS and this just doesn’t exist in many places on the ground. Some believe comp because of tradition, some because of study, some because that is what they have been taught, for some it is a combination of things. I think a tiny fraction believes comp because of ESS. You make a bigger deal of its impact than is warranted IMO. I’m not even convinced all the bigwigs among the neocals believe in ESS, much less local church leaders and members.

  388. js wrote:

    Serving Kids In Japan wrote:
    js wrote:
    There is a place for CBE and for CBMW in my book, so long as neither makes the mistake of saying the gospel IS complementarianism or the gospel IS egalitarianism.
    Even when the CBMW promotes such obvious theological nonsense as the Eternal Subordination of the Son? That’s not the same mistake as saying “the gospel is complementarianism”, but it’s a pretty big one.
    I don’t agree with ESS at all and think it is an interpretive leap that is unwarranted and potentially dangerous. But I would not say that because of promotion of this that CBMW should be shut down or should not have a voice. Let them make their points and then oppose them if you disagree. If, as TWW has shown in the past, CBMW takes in so much less money than CBE but you all say CBMW is so loud and has such a strong influence, maybe you should go to CBE and urge them to use their influence more strongly. I am sure CBE has published articles which would be considered on the edges of orthodoxy (I am just guessing here but I am thinking maybe something pro LGBT for example). But if this is the case I still don’t want their voice squelched. In the information age, that is the last thing we should do. Let these groups exist and do their work and let the chips fall where they may. That is my view.

    That’s “edge of orthodoxy leveling” ;). You are equating unorthodox teaching (many say heretical) on the Trinity with a secondary issue such as position on LGBT. I think the thing about new teaching on the Trinity is if constitutes a new religion. Teaching on the Trinity is the great dividing line between what has historically been orthodox Christianity (orthodox with a little o and including Eastern Orthodox/Catholic/Protestant) versus other religions such as Jehovah’s Witnesses and Latter Day Saints . Trinitarian teaching is as core as you can get.

    I am not qualified to automatically understand the heresy level of ESS. I am in the process of studying it. Part of that process has been to ask lay people I know who are scholars of their own church traditions to research what their church teaches. We know Protestantism in its many forms sprung out of the western branch of Christianity and along with Catholics, we hold to the findings of some early church councils and to creeds such as the Nicene Creed. (The teaching of western Christianity broke from the initial creed which said that the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father. The west later added, “And from the Son.” But both east and west agree the Spirit proceeds from the Father and east and west agree on the trinitarian understanding aside from those three added words. We (Protestants, Catholics, and Eastern Orthodox) used to hold those beliefs in common. ESS may be breaking from the historical understanding of the Trinity. We may or may not agree that the Catholic or Orthodox churches took a turn at some later point, but because they believe that the Bible is part of the tradition passed down by the apostles and early church fathers, and because they give the teachings of the early church fathers in some writings authority that Protestants do not, serious Christians from either the western or eastern ancient churches tend to actually be familiar with the teachings of the early church fathers. Neither lay person I asked was aware of anything like ESS in their tradition. The EO group of lay people I asked immediately pronounced it heretical. (for one thing, “subordination” was pronounced heretical way back when, so ESS proponents have to take care to paint how their kind of “subordination” is a different enough kind of “subordination” not to be the heretical kid of “subordination.” The serious Catholic scholar I asked could find nothing about ESS in their church’s teachings and in examining some of what is on the internet about ESS thought that it did indeed appear to him that it was created by reading a certain view into the text to back a certain view of women’s roles. So ESS is a central issue. If as alleged a group changes teaching on the Trinity because of their strongly held view on a secondary issue, then that is cause for great alarm. As my Catholic friend said, though, it brings up the question of who decides. It used to be that the evangelicalism that I grew up with would not have departed from the teachings of the early church councils on the nature of the Trinity. It is frightening that this is changing. I do hope our brethren in different pockets of Christianity, whether evangelical across the world or Catholic or Eastern Orthodox come to the aid of those being influenced by the Neo Cals in the US. Here is a Protestant scholar’s take on it (The scholar is egalitarian): http://benwitherington.blogspot.com/2006/03/eternal-subordination-of-christ-and-of.html
    or here is someone who is a patristics (McKinion–in comments) scholar from his own camp (definitely comp plus from Southeastern) debating Miller’s assertion that that ESS is found in early church thought. http://sbcvoices.com/the-eternal-subordination-of-the-son-is-the-historic-doctrine-of-the-church/ Miller has to concede that the teaching was in his words, only in “nascent” form in the time of the church fathers.

    Note that another Protestant scholar on the early church fathers weighs in and says the doctrine is not historical

    Views on LGBT may be important, but they are not central to the faith. I can’t think of anything more central than the nature of the Trinity.

  389. js wrote:

    Sometimes our opposition can get close to censorship and that is a mistake IMO.

    The only people advocating for censorship are the people like the “leaders” who disfellowshipped me and Gramp3 for questioning their CBMW dogma, including ESS. It is the YRR who are censoring and deleting comments and not having open comments and inviting people to leave who disagree, and kicking others out whose arguments they are unable to refute from the text. This is a very weak style of “leadership” even though they think they are strong leaders. Sorry, your concerns about censorship are not going to get very far here with people who have been silenced and threatened by “leadership.”

  390. Gram3 wrote:

    js wrote:

    That is my hang up. In the minds of those raising this idea of mediators, at what point does right biblical leadership become sinful mediation? If you are saying there is no leadership at all in the NT, I think you have a very difficult case to make biblically.

    Biblical leaders lead by example an not by fiat. That is why the qualifications for leadership are spelled out as character qualities and an ability to teach sound doctrine, and that entails also refuting false doctrine. Our “leaders” in the Gospel Glitterati have so far demonstrated that they don’t have the qualifications which the Bible outlines to protect and guard the flock from hirelings nor to teach sound doctrine. Or at least sound doctrine that is not polluted by unsound doctrine. You seem to conceive of “leadership” as an office, but you cannot find such office in the Bible. It is a tradition in the church, but that does not mean it is necessary or even desirable to the operation of the church as a body.

    I am not arguing for leadership on the basis of tradition but on the evidence of Scripture. You outlined very nicely the biblical case for leadership in the first part of your reply. The problems you laid out are not problems caused by having leaders they are problems caused by being sinners. Let’s not throw the biblical baby of leadership out with the bathwater of sinful leaders.

  391. js wrote:

    I’m not even convinced all the bigwigs among the neocals believe in ESS, much less local church leaders and members.

    Please cite one YRR or Gospel Glitterati kahuna who does not promote ESS? It is essential to their ruse of “equal” but “not equal.” Should conservative evangelicals come to their positions from tradition or from textual study using sound, conservative hermenutics? Should Bereans just accept what their “leaders” tell them, or should they be diligent students of the Word God has given to us? Or should the pewpeons just shut up and accept what is handed out on Sunday morning from the pulpit?

  392. Gram3 wrote:

    js wrote:

    Sometimes our opposition can get close to censorship and that is a mistake IMO.

    The only people advocating for censorship are the people like the “leaders” who disfellowshipped me and Gramp3 for questioning their CBMW dogma, including ESS. It is the YRR who are censoring and deleting comments and not having open comments and inviting people to leave who disagree, and kicking others out whose arguments they are unable to refute from the text. This is a very weak style of “leadership” even though they think they are strong leaders. Sorry, your concerns about censorship are not going to get very far here with people who have been silenced and threatened by “leadership.”

    When you call all who hold a comp view Female Subordinationists and accuse them of believing women are inferior and questioning their belief in Scripture and their desire to read and study the text faithfully, you are lobbing a lot of accusations which, while not technically censorship, certainly leave you open to the charge of elitism and lack of generosity to those who, through studied consideration, come to different conclusions than you.

  393. Gram3 wrote:

    js wrote:

    That is my hang up. In the minds of those raising this idea of mediators, at what point does right biblical leadership become sinful mediation? If you are saying there is no leadership at all in the NT, I think you have a very difficult case to make biblically.

    Biblical leaders lead by example an not by fiat. That is why the qualifications for leadership are spelled out as character qualities and an ability to teach sound doctrine, and that entails also refuting false doctrine. Our “leaders” in the Gospel Glitterati have so far demonstrated that they don’t have the qualifications which the Bible outlines to protect and guard the flock from hirelings nor to teach sound doctrine. Or at least sound doctrine that is not polluted by unsound doctrine. You seem to conceive of “leadership” as an office, but you cannot find such office in the Bible. It is a tradition in the church, but that does not mean it is necessary or even desirable to the operation of the church as a body.

    Was Paul acting as a biblical leader when he demanded the church in Corinth to expel the sexually immoral man?

  394. @ js:
    The YRR and Gospel Glitterati are not advocating for leadership to arise organically within the local body of faith. They are advocating for the forms of leadership which were adopted by the early church from secular government. That is why we have 20-something “elders” in YRR churches. An elder is someone who has proved by his/her life that they are trustworthy to handle God’s word and to serve God’s people by their example of imitating Christ. There is nothing in the Bible about the *offices* of teaching elders, senior pastors, ruling elders, etc. Elders are recognized by the body not elevated by their peers and the perpetuated in office by their peers.

  395. Gram3 wrote:

    js wrote:

    I’m not even convinced all the bigwigs among the neocals believe in ESS, much less local church leaders and members.

    Please cite one YRR or Gospel Glitterati kahuna who does not promote ESS? It is essential to their ruse of “equal” but “not equal.” Should conservative evangelicals come to their positions from tradition or from textual study using sound, conservative hermenutics? Should Bereans just accept what their “leaders” tell them, or should they be diligent students of the Word God has given to us? Or should the pewpeons just shut up and accept what is handed out on Sunday morning from the pulpit?

    I’m talking about what is versus what should be and am just being honest. If a person came up in a different church background they might uncritically accept an egal position because of tradition, etc. Not everybody will study these things diligently. That is a reality. Other things may arrest their attention. Why do you insist on painting what I say in the worst light (“the pewpeons just shut up” etc.)?

  396. @ js:
    Yes. Paul taught people to imitate him as he imitated Christ. He was an apostle of Christ who was appointed to write the material that he wrote, at least according to my view of inspiration which is that the scriptures have both a human author and a divine author.

    If you want to say that Paul is the same as any given Gospel Glitterati Guru, then I am going to have to ask for more evidence.

  397. js wrote:

    Why do you insist on painting what I say in the worst light (“the pewpeons just shut up” etc.)?

    Because you come to TWW and defend the YRR who are teaching precisely that. And are “exercising the keys” to enforce their silencing tactics. Since you defend them, I naturally assume that you agree with their approach to “leadership.”

    Someone who adopts an “egalitarian” view (I prefer the term mutualism) due merely to tradition should study to show themselves approved. That said, someone who is egalitarian is not insisting that half of humanity was created to be subordinate to the other half of humanity. They are not insisting that more than half of any given church body be silenced. So, in that respect, the unquestioning egalitarian is causing much less damage to both Christ’s atonement and to their brothers and sisters in Christ.

    Do you plan to demonstrate from the text your certainty about Female Subordinationism or Male Headship?

  398. @ js:
    You did not answer the question regarding your assertion that ESS is not universally taught by the Gospel Glitterati/YRR. Who among them is not teaching this?

  399. Jeffrey Chalmers wrote:

    Velour wrote:

    Serving Kids In Japan wrote:
    js wrote:
    When a congregation, acting in obedience to Matthew 18 and 1 Corinthians 5, by mutual decision, excludes someone from the local church, are you saying they are acting as sinful mediators between the believer and Christ? The congregation is individual Christians acting collectively to exclude a member.

    For example, if you had an unrepentant Jordan Root in your congregation, how would your congregation deal with him in a way that did not make you into sinful mediators?
    JS, the concept of excluding a member from participating in fellowship (for a good reason) has nothing to do with acting as mediators on Christ’s behalf. There is nothing, in the Bible or in secular law, preventing us from refusing to associate with someone whose presence is emotionally harmful or physically dangerous. That’s a matter of self-preservation and emotional well-being, not pronouncing judgement or sitting on the Great White Throne.
    The proper way to deal with an unrepentant “Jordan Root” is likely to report him to the authorities, file a restraining order, inform all members who he is and why he can’t stay, and inform him that he won’t be welcome until he cleans up his act. (Did I leave anything out?) In this case, the congregation is not “playing God” or acting as mediators between God and a dangerous man. They are simply protecting themselves and, most importantly, their children.
    But as we have seen, that rarely happens. In fact, I was banned from church property for reporting the pastors/elders friend a convicted Megan’s List sex offender to his supervising law enforcement agency after watching him run his hands through my friends’ young son’s hair (parents had no idea the man was a convicted sex offender who had served prison time and was touching their young boy). I received threats from my pastors/elders in person and by phone.
    The Megan’s List sex offender? He was given a position of leadership and trust!
    Prior to my being banned from church property, a good doctor was excommunicated and shunned and also banned from church property. His *crime*? Disagreeing with the pastors/elders in private about how they were running the church and using The Bible.

    I really think, at some point, these type of church “violations” need to be made public…. As happened with the Village church. Leaders like this that are corrupt, if unwilling to be confronted privately, need to be confronted publically.

    Yes. That is my thinking too. I and other former members are going to start a blog about it. They even disciplined one wife before the entire church because she refused to come to that church with her husband, she disagreed with the church and the elders, disagreed with the church structure/elder rule, and was practicing her Christian conscience. The senior pastor/elder went to her and her husband’s home and screamed at her to *obey* and *submit* to her husband, according to the wife. The wife’s response? She moved out of her and her husband’s home. In response to the senior pastor’s “orders” for the church members to *pursue* her, she disconnected her cell phone and her email. Basically stalking and harassment.

    She is allowed a Christian conscience.

  400. js wrote:

    Was Paul acting as a biblical leader when he demanded the church in Corinth to expel the sexually immoral man?

    Distinction – Paul was addressing a sexually immoral ‘Christian’ man.

    Also, this action that Paul took can just as easily be taken by me, you, or anyone else in a body of believers.

  401. js wrote:

    When you call all who hold a comp view Female Subordinationists and accuse them of believing women are inferior and questioning their belief in Scripture and their desire to read and study the text faithfully, you are lobbing a lot of accusations which, while not technically censorship, certainly leave you open to the charge of elitism and lack of generosity to those who, through studied consideration, come to different conclusions than you.

    I am certainly not advocating for censorship on this issue. On the contrary, I challenge people to produce their reasoning and their exegesis and expose their hemeneutical method. That is hardly censorship since I am requesting the other person’s viewpoint. I do not merely accept assertions based on non-existent evidence which is how I view evidence produced by a conservative who uses fallacious reasoning and an inconsistent hermeneutic. To my knowledge I have never, ever, told someone they could not produce evidence. As a matter of fact, you are the one who made an accusation against me on another thread and then refused to come back and either retract that or to clarify. So, no, I’m not the one silencing anyone.

    Again, please trace out for me how you get to Female Subordinationism (or Male Headship, if you prefer that term) using just the text and a consistent and conservative hermeneutic. If you could supply the Magic Male Authority verse, it would be most helpful.

  402. Gram3 wrote:

    Who among them is not teaching this?

    While they may not be actively “teaching” ESS, they are definitely all “living” it. Listen to their sermon podcasts. There is an over-emphasis of “God” and an under-emphasis of Jesus. Female subordination is really an extension of the Eternal Subordination of the Son doctrine. As soon as women in the New Calvinist movement get wise to such bondage, they will drag their sorry husbands/boy friends out of the mess. This could be the Achilles Heel which brings the movement to a halt, when young women proclaim “Now wait just a darn minute here!”

  403. Gram3 wrote:

    someone who is egalitarian is not insisting that half of humanity was created to be subordinate to the other half of humanity. They are not insisting that more than half of any given church body be silenced.

    Egalitarians also do not insist that another’s marriage is out of God’s order if they practice comp. Comp people tend to believe their way is the only Biblical™ one.

  404. @ js:
    You’re perhaps making the assumption that everyone has fully researched to come up with their views on a subject.

    I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to say there’s huge gaps in the formation of certain aspects of the average person’s thinking – which is only natural – there’s only so much time in the day to fully research the sometimes centuries-worth of knowledge on a given subject. I know I have many such gaps coming from my background, which is why in general I stick to asking questions, listening, and sharing experiences that might be helpful on a given things. I have a lot to learn.

    What that doesn’t change is that ESS ideas are apparently being put out by many scholarly types and big names with followings in reformed circles, as Gram and others have said, and the followers are apparently swallowing that line of thinking with the rest of their scholarship without much discernment.

  405. @ Max:
    If you look at their doctrinal distinctives and see Female Subordinationism, you may be sure that ESS is lurking there, even if not made explicit. The reason is that the entire Female Subordinationist/Complementarian dogma rests upon George Knight III’s work in which he invented the notion that there are “roles” within the immanent Trinity and that those “roles” within the immanent Trinity are echoed in the relationship between men and women, especially in the church and home.

    Everything that modern-day Female Subordinationists teach rests on George Knight III’s work and Susan Foh’s paper on Genesis 3:16 where she concludes that females desire to usurp male authority by nature. Once you read those two papers, which are both online via Google, you will see their theses recapitulated and refined over and over. That is why everything that CBMW and the Gospel Glitterati put out is so predictable.

  406. Gram3 wrote:

    That is why everything that CBMW and the Gospel Glitterati put out is so predictable.

    And that is why, once you remove the idea of “roles” the entire enterprise collapses. And the reason that the entire enterprise collapses is because the modern West is essentially unanimous that *all* people are ontologically equal. Roles are absolutely essential, and the only way to make “functional” roles that are based solely on the circumstances of birth not ontological is to invoke the immanent Trinity with its supposed “roles.” Roles are the interpretive key. You will not find a CBMW article that does not reference roles. You will not find a Gospel Glitterati sermon or article or book on marriage that does not reference “roles” even though there is absolutely nothing in the actual texts beyond reproduction that outlines any ordained gender roles. It is fabrication from start to finish, and it started with George Knight III because the conservatives in the Presbyterian church needed a rationale to continue barring women from full ministry. Historical fact.

  407. GovPappy wrote:

    You’re perhaps making the assumption that everyone has fully researched to come up with their views on a subject.

    That is certainly true. JS is adamant about what he believes, but so far has refused to show his work regarding how he got there. It is understandable that the average person has not studied all of this, but it is not understandable why a church leader like JS will not show his work before making assertions.

  408. Gram3 wrote:

    The reason is that the entire Female Subordinationist/Complementarian dogma rests upon George Knight III’s work in which he invented the notion that there are “roles” within the immanent Trinity and that those “roles” within the immanent Trinity are echoed in the relationship between men and women, especially in the church and home.

    After you mentioned George Knight III yesterday, I found this:

    “Contemporary Evangelicals believe the historically agreed fundamentals of the Christian faith, including the Trinity. In the typical Evangelical formula, the Trinity is one God in three equal persons, among whom there is economic subordination (as, for example, when the Son obeys the Father). As recently as 1977, economic subordinationism has been advanced in evangelical circles at the suggestion of many, not least George W. Knight III in his 1977 book, “The New Testament Teaching on Role Relationship with Men and Women”. In this book, Knight suggests that the Son is functionally – but not ontologically – subordinate to the Father, thus positing that eternal subordination does not necessarily imply ontological subordination.”

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subordinationism

    ESS is not the orthodox Trinity that most of Christianity has embraced for hundreds of years. It’s certainly not what was taught to me during my time in the SBC from 1970-1988. And it’s also not new. It floated around before orthodox Trinity was established.

  409. GovPappy wrote:

    I think we’re having this discussion because we’re busy fitting our American idea of church into scripture, consciously or subconsciously. We have this very Catholic idea of necessary human leadership in the church ingrained in us, when I believe all it does is make us lazy and quench the Spirit in our lives. “Let the leaders deal with it. Take it to your leader.” Our growth has been stunted by this pervasive mindset.

    Thank you, it is good to know you are out there.

  410. Lydia wrote:

    The entire place was also like a sort of historical memorial tracking the Jewish trajectory of the OT. But it was so tastefully done as to be inspiring. They also offered quite a few classes on OT history, etc. It was very interesting and we could take a page from their focus on education and art.

    AMEN ! There are a great many cues Christianity could take from Judaism.

  411. @ Gram3:
    Gram, since Matt Chandler and The Village Church has come up multiple times on TWW in this regard, you need to hear his view of female subordination (if you haven’t already). In an interview with John Piper, Chandler indicates that young women “flourish” under this teaching, stating that “our girls love that I teach to men … that I go after the men.” I wonder what they would really say if you got them alone over a cup of coffee? Chandler idolizes John Piper; the influence Piper has had on this young SBC pastor and President of Acts 29 is very clear. Check out a segment of the interview at the following link – fast forward to 11:15 for his blurb on joyous female subordination. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKEpVzHnUw0

  412. Velour wrote:

    Jeffrey Chalmers wrote:
    Velour wrote:
    Serving Kids In Japan wrote:
    js wrote:
    When a congregation, acting in obedience to Matthew 18 and 1 Corinthians 5, by mutual decision, excludes someone from the local church, are you saying they are acting as sinful mediators between the believer and Christ? The congregation is individual Christians acting collectively to exclude a member.

    For example, if you had an unrepentant Jordan Root in your congregation, how would your congregation deal with him in a way that did not make you into sinful mediators?
    JS, the concept of excluding a member from participating in fellowship (for a good reason) has nothing to do with acting as mediators on Christ’s behalf. There is nothing, in the Bible or in secular law, preventing us from refusing to associate with someone whose presence is emotionally harmful or physically dangerous. That’s a matter of self-preservation and emotional well-being, not pronouncing judgement or sitting on the Great White Throne.
    The proper way to deal with an unrepentant “Jordan Root” is likely to report him to the authorities, file a restraining order, inform all members who he is and why he can’t stay, and inform him that he won’t be welcome until he cleans up his act. (Did I leave anything out?) In this case, the congregation is not “playing God” or acting as mediators between God and a dangerous man. They are simply protecting themselves and, most importantly, their children.
    But as we have seen, that rarely happens. In fact, I was banned from church property for reporting the pastors/elders friend a convicted Megan’s List sex offender to his supervising law enforcement agency after watching him run his hands through my friends’ young son’s hair (parents had no idea the man was a convicted sex offender who had served prison time and was touching their young boy). I received threats from my pastors/elders in person and by phone.
    The Megan’s List sex offender? He was given a position of leadership and trust!
    Prior to my being banned from church property, a good doctor was excommunicated and shunned and also banned from church property. His *crime*? Disagreeing with the pastors/elders in private about how they were running the church and using The Bible.
    I really think, at some point, these type of church “violations” need to be made public…. As happened with the Village church. Leaders like this that are corrupt, if unwilling to be confronted privately, need to be confronted publically.
    Yes. That is my thinking too. I and other former members are going to start a blog about it. They even disciplined one wife before the entire church because she refused to come to that church with her husband, she disagreed with the church and the elders, disagreed with the church structure/elder rule, and was practicing her Christian conscience. The senior pastor/elder went to her and her husband’s home and screamed at her to *obey* and *submit* to her husband, according to the wife. The wife’s response? She moved out of her and her husband’s home. In response to the senior pastor’s “orders” for the church members to *pursue* her, she disconnected her cell phone and her email. Basically stalking and harassment.
    She is allowed a Christian conscience.

    I agree, and at this point, this type of behavior needs to be made public with names. That type of harassment is verging on illegal and should be publically exposed…. It follows … In modern times, these blogs/technology allow us be a ” body of believers” which are separated by thousands of miles…. It is true professionally, I work with people in China and France, so we should also work as a body of Christains in the same way..

  413. Gram3 wrote:

    GovPappy wrote:

    You’re perhaps making the assumption that everyone has fully researched to come up with their views on a subject.

    That is certainly true. JS is adamant about what he believes, but so far has refused to show his work regarding how he got there. It is understandable that the average person has not studied all of this, but it is not understandable why a church leader like JS will not show his work before making assertions.

    You are coming very close to bullying. Read the Moo article and the ivp article I posted above. They give an adequate general view of my position. I am not going to take time to write a post when I can link to good work that has been done which expresses my view.

  414. Bridget wrote:

    Also, this action that Paul took can just as easily be taken by me, you, or anyone else in a body of believers.

    Similar to how some are calling the emmergents to do something about Tony Jones.

  415. Gram3 wrote:

    js wrote:

    When you call all who hold a comp view Female Subordinationists and accuse them of believing women are inferior and questioning their belief in Scripture and their desire to read and study the text faithfully, you are lobbing a lot of accusations which, while not technically censorship, certainly leave you open to the charge of elitism and lack of generosity to those who, through studied consideration, come to different conclusions than you.

    I am certainly not advocating for censorship on this issue. On the contrary, I challenge people to produce their reasoning and their exegesis and expose their hemeneutical method. That is hardly censorship since I am requesting the other person’s viewpoint. I do not merely accept assertions based on non-existent evidence which is how I view evidence produced by a conservative who uses fallacious reasoning and an inconsistent hermeneutic. To my knowledge I have never, ever, told someone they could not produce evidence. As a matter of fact, you are the one who made an accusation against me on another thread and then refused to come back and either retract that or to clarify. So, no, I’m not the one silencing anyone.

    Again, please trace out for me how you get to Female Subordinationism (or Male Headship, if you prefer that term) using just the text and a consistent and conservative hermeneutic. If you could supply the Magic Male Authority verse, it would be most helpful.

    I don’t need a magic authority verse to do what God says. I don’t have to have God’s reasons for why I should do something before I obey and I didn’t think prooftexting was your thing anyway.

  416. Daisy wrote:

    Many genuine Christians will defend the “Billy Graham rule” to the death (i.e., never, ever be left alone with a woman, especially not an unmarried one, because adultery is guaranteed to result – according to this line of thinking). You will even see a small number of regular Christian participants on this blog defend the Billy Graham rule at times.

    Jesus didn’t obey the Billy Graham rule (John 4).

  417. Bill M wrote:

    Bridget wrote:

    Also, this action that Paul took can just as easily be taken by me, you, or anyone else in a body of believers.

    Similar to how some are calling the emmergents to do something about Tony Jones.

    But nobody was calling it out apparently, which was why a leader stepped up to call it out. I don’t defend the yrr in all their ways but I can’t build a biblical bridge to the absence of any leadership in the local church.

  418. Max wrote:

    Chandler idolizes John Piper; the influence Piper has had on this young SBC pastor and President of Acts 29 is very clear.

    Oh yes, I have heard many, many young women talk about the joy of submission and headship. They have good husbands who would have been good husbands in any case. A good man does not need to be the boss in order to be a good husband. Similarly, a good wife does not need to be subordinated in order to be a good wife. She is a good wife because she loves and respects her husband. Female Subordinationism must sell the idea that it is essential to good marriages. That is simply false.

  419. js wrote:

    I think Paul teaches that women are saved through childbearing too, because that is what the text says. I admit freely that I don’t know what it means, and I have read the possible explanations (including yours). There are lots of things in the Bible I don’t fully understand, as is true of any Christian.

    And, as a single childless woman, you have no idea what kind of a slap in the face that is. “Oh, you’re saved by your faith if you’re a man, but a woman…you’re saved by childbearing.” Right. *Facepalm.* (I’d note that most non-Evangelical Protestant scholars of the Bible do not believe Paul wrote 1 & 2 Timothy, Titus and a few other books. In part because of crazy stuff like that which undermines his teachings in Romans and other authentic books.)

  420. Js wrote:

    You are coming very close to bullying.

    In what way am I a bully by asking you to demonstrate from the actual texts that I, as a woman, am subordinate to you, either because you are a man or because you are a member of the clergy class? Who is being a bully? You want unchallenged power. I am not prepared to surrender the freedom which Christ bought for me because you don’t like to be challenged by a Berean. If you think that what I have written to you is bullying, you need to spend some time in the real world. Or try putting yourselves in the position of women whose husbands have been poisoned with this unbiblical doctrine.

    I have read Moo and every other one out there. I have read every JETS article on the topic. Have you?

    You make assertions but you do not back them up. As I said before, you come across as someone who feels entitled to have their assertions merely accepted. That is precisely the attitude which is causing so much turmoil and so much damage in the YRR churches.

  421. js wrote:

    My personal opinion is that abuse exists wherever humans gather in groups in any sustained way and that it is not endemic to one type of system over another. The types of abuses may change but the human struggle for power and control is as old as Eden.

    But we’re not supposed to specifically look at the abuses engendered by Neo-Calvinism, and it’s just *wrong* to talk about the great model for the Neo-Calvinists, one Jean Cauvin, and his behavior when he was the theocratic leader over Geneva. Nope, can’t talk about that at all. Because everyone does it.

    Sin leveling, anyone?

  422. @ BeenThereDoneThat:
    “Role Relationship” ……. A role one plays is not real. A role is someone one pretends to be, not who one is!
    In the male and female “roles”, the males play the roles of superiors, while the females play the role of inferior subordinates.

    If the Son if functionally subordinate to the Father, does that mean that Jesus didn’t give his life for me??? Jesus didn’t die because he loves me. Jesus didn’t die to save me. Jesus died because God told him to do it. How comforting.

  423. Js wrote:

    I don’t need a magic authority verse to do what God says. I don’t have to have God’s reasons for why I should do something before I obey and I didn’t think prooftexting was your thing anyway.

    What in the world does this mean? How can you assert what God says without demonstrating your view from the texts which he has given to us? I’m not asking you to provide God’s reasons for anything. That is what the YRR do. I am asking you to demonstrate your assertion of authority over me as a woman from the text. I am certainly not asking you for a prooftext. I am asking you, specifically, where in the Bible does God ordain universal male authority over females in the actual text. That is the claim you are making, and I am saying you need to back that up. That is the essence of sola scriptura.

  424. Js wrote:

    I can’t build a biblical bridge to the absence of any leadership in the local church.

    That is a straw man. No one is arguing for absence of leadership. What we are advocating for is leadership which is modeled on the example of Jesus and not on the example of the worldly leaders who are about power rather than serving. And I am not talking about the servant-leadership which is a mask. The men who advocate this are not the ones doing the behind-the-scenes-with-no-applause leadership. They love the first place.

  425. Nancy2 wrote:

    If the Son if functionally subordinate to the Father

    If Jesus is fully God and fully man, how can He be functionally subordinate to Himself?

  426. Nancy2 wrote:

    Jesus died because God told him to do it. How comforting.

    Precisely. He did not save us out of love but because the Father sent him. Jesus the orderly. It totally changes the character of our Savior and of the Father as well.

  427. @ Gram3:
    Chandler’s reference to “our girls” is in itself a condescending characterization of female believers, implying a lower or inferior class under “our” control. It is not a term of endearment (as Karen Hinkley found out).

  428. js wrote:

    Just as in Ephesians there are core principles for husbands and wives ….. which should be followed even if they will look a little different in today’s world than they would have looked in Paul’s world. ISTM Paul does give some ontological weight to the relationship in marriage between husband and wife, but I think the ontological basis is not creation but Christ.

    In Paul’s world, most women were property. I suppose there is some ontological weight to a man having his property be submissive.

  429. At least I am in good company with Lydia, the BigBadBully who points out the obvious. I guess we can add “bully” to the list of words which have been re-defined. Questioning their authority is bullying them. Or, as Driscoll put it, sinning through questioning or however he phrased it. Or was that Mahaney? I lose track of the Authoritarians Who Must Not Be Questioned. Interesting that Paul encouraged people to question him, and he was an apostle! These men, however, presume to be greater than their teacher.

  430. Max wrote:

    @ Gram3:
    Chandler’s reference to “our girls” is in itself a condescending characterization of female believers, implying a lower or inferior class under “our” control. It is not a term of endearment (as Karen Hinkley found out).

    Typically I’m not one to carp over language or demand PC terminology, but in the context of his view of women, it actually reflects what he believes: women are made *for* men in the sense of being created to be the male’s assistant in pursuing the male’s objectives. Females are not considered as persons who join *with* males to achieve God’s purposes rather than being “under” males to achieve the male’s objectives.

  431. Gram3 wrote:

    That doesn’t make sense, so…Trinity!

    Is that kind of like yelling… “Squirrel!” at a bunch of dogs?

  432. js wrote:

    Lydia wrote:
    js wrote:
    think Paul teaches that women are saved through childbearing too, because that is what the text says.
    So sad for all those devout followers of Christ who are barren. Hell it is then.
    That wasn’t fair. You know that was not my implication. My point is it is true because God said it (through Paul). Now the question is, what does it mean? There I am less certain but I have always liked the view you express in a later post.

    Not fair? In my view you came perilously close to “baiting” by setting forth that bald statement all by itself. In a sense, you proved Gram3’s point, that people actually are teaching that a woman’s salvation comes through her own obedience in actively seeking pregnancy (not just marrying and passively accepting her husband’s advances, hoping something will happen) and going through the (scary — believe me, I don’t know a single woman I’ve talked to who sees birth as anything but a dreaded ordeal) birth process.

    People out there are actually taking that verse all on its own and building theological structures around it.

    “Keep ’em in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant” is not just a joke in poor taste. It’s a lifestyle.

    And then, when someone inevitably takes what you posted and runs with it, you have the nerve to chide them gently, and play the role of the reasonable one.

    While I enjoy a good debate (reading them, or listening to them; I don’t think quickly enough to engage in debate, but I do appreciate the opportunity to harvest food for further thought), something that smacks of manipulation puts a bad taste in my mouth.

  433. refugee wrote:

    actively seeking pregnancy (not just marrying and passively accepting her husband’s advances, hoping something will happen

    (and I don’t mean to imply she goes out in the streets — and suddenly I’m thinking of Tamar and Judah — but I have overheard a mom of a fair sized family talking about “aching to be pregnant again” and other moms joking about it being about time for another baby, when the “baby” of the family starts walking, or turns two, or something to that effect.)

  434. refugee wrote:

    Gram3 wrote:
    That doesn’t make sense, so…Trinity!
    Is that kind of like yelling… “Squirrel!” at a bunch of dogs?

    Don’t know about that, but distraction is certainly one recourse when you have no other options. Another one is to invoke various forms of an ad hominem defense. For thinking people, these tactics are not persuasive, and in fact demonstrate a fundamental weakness in their position. For if they had real evidence, they would produce it.

  435. Velour wrote:

    Gram3 wrote:
    ESS, like the entire Female Subordinationist schema, is a muddled mess precisely because it is an ad hoc solution to a pressing problem. Gotta keep the females from polluting the sacred spaces and from bossing the men. Gotta convince them they are equal and not equal at the same time. That doesn’t make sense, so…Trinity
    So far all of the men in churches that I have known who have promoted these bizarre comp doctrines:
    a) had abusive fathers; or
    b) non-existent relationships with their fathers;
    c) don’t know how to *be men* and haven’t reconciled their pain/anger/loss about a) and b);
    d) and frequently are hiding their own gross sexual sins (of children, other females, males, etc).

    You have mentioned this before. Thanks for the reminder. I keep waiting for someone to post an exception, but so far, haven’t seen any.

  436. Patrice wrote:

    They write as if they’ve heard it all before and anything disagreeable is incorrect, lacking spiritual depth, maturity, education, proper gender, etc.

    Yes. Exactly. This is exactly what one of the elders muttered as I was telling them of my struggles with myself, as a member of that church, not long before they branded me “rebellious” and “leading (our teens) in rebellion”.

  437. Max wrote:

    @ Gram3:
    Chandler’s reference to “our girls” is in itself a condescending characterization of female believers, implying a lower or inferior class under “our” control. It is not a term of endearment (as Karen Hinkley found out).

    The only men who can call grown women girls are your 80 year old Uncle Herbert and your Dad.

    But wait! If TVC women act like little girls, as they are trained to do in that system, then maybe Chandler has a point? Perhaps, they are acting exactly as they are taught to act: Make daddy/husband feel successful and important and maybe he will take you on a special date.

  438. @ refugee:
    I mean, he muttered, “I’ve heard all this before…”

    Well, not from me. I had perfected the art of keeping my mouth shut. So he must have heard it from others who left before me.

    So, if you keep hearing the same thing over and over, perhaps you ought to start paying some attention?

  439. Bridget wrote:

    Also, this action that Paul took can just as easily be taken by me, you, or anyone else in a body of believers.

    That is what he was chiding the entire body about: NOT taking action.

  440. @ refugee:
    If you read the Moo article that JS links, you will see that Moo admits that Paul’s argument from an appeal to Creation appears to be a non sequitur. Undaunted by that however, Moo then proceeds to assume that Paul is, in fact, making an argument from the temporal order of creation. Moo constructs and entirely circular argument to get around the obvious fact that Paul’s argument makes no sense if it is an appeal to the temporal order of creation of the man and the woman.

    Moo’s conclusion regarding the meaning of verse 15 is “6) It is not through active teaching and ruling activities that Christian women will be saved, but by faithfulness to their proper role, exemplified in motherhood.”

    And this is a conclusion which merely affirms what he sets out to demonstrate. Otherwise known as begging the question. Moo does not outline Paul’s argument, but rather he dismisses the structure of the argument and goes off to say what he wanted to say in the first place: Roles. At least Moo has the intellectual integrity to acknowledge that, on his interpretation of an appeal to the temporal order of creation, Paul is being illogical. And I think that Paul is anything but illogical, and I think that Paul is not appealing to the temporal order of creation. And I do not think that Paul was teaching that women are saved by keeping to their role as exemplified by motherhood.

    For the record, Moo’s article is one I have had in my files for reference. I encourage everyone to read it and analyze the argument Moo is making about Paul’s argument. Same for George Knight III and Susan Foh and Wayne Grudem and John Piper and Bruce Ware and all of the others. They cannot get to Roles except by assuming Roles first.

  441. js wrote:

    Gram3 wrote:
    Js wrote:
    Jesus himself in Luke 2 is said to have submitted Himself to His parents, the very same world picked up by Paul in all the marriage passages. If the perfect Son of God submitted Himself to His parents, how can submission in itself imply inequality?

    And yet Jesus, while being completely respectful and submissive to His parents was found in the temple teaching the Pharisees and when his parents were exasperated about having been separated from Him, He replied: Did you not know I must be about my Father’s business?” So, His submission to His Heavenly Father took precedence over submission to His parents in this case.
    However, in Complementarian doctrine, the wife must submit to her husband in all things, even if God might be directing her with regard to a certain matter, she must listen to her husband before the leading of the Holy Spirit – that is, if her husband has a disagrees. Of course they will say the exception is: if he tells you to do something that is “against Scripture.” Only problem with that is, in Comp. marriages the husband is always the arbiter of what God’s will is since he is the Leader. What is it is a matter that the Bible isn’t clear on – not everything is spelled out in the Bible. She has no verse to point and neither does he, but he still has the FINAL say always. Furthermore, as I have said before, this system is a breeding ground for learned helplessness. Since the wife doesn’t have to be concerned with making decisions, and the responsibility if always on the husband, then why even bother giving your opinion. Just let the man make the decisions and be done with it.

  442. GovPappy wrote:

    think we’re having this discussion because we’re busy fitting our American idea of church into scripture, consciously or subconsciously. We have this very Catholic idea of necessary human leadership in the church ingrained in us, when I believe all it does is make us lazy and quench the Spirit in our lives. “Let the leaders deal with it. Take it to your leader.” Our growth has been stunted by this pervasive mindset.

    It is incredible, isn’t it? It was not even like this 50 years ago in my parents generation. (I am sure it was somewhere but not in my environment). They would be appalled at the controlling behavior of church employees. Lets face it, that is what pastors are. They are employees of the people who pay them.

    So why don’t the pew sitters get this? Why do they pay them to tell them what to think and believe? It really bears discussing indepth. I am seeing this attitude all over the place with government leaders, too. People are literally handing over their ability to make choices to let someone else decide.

    So why is it that more and more folks do not think adults can come together and organize themselves? Heck, we did as kids for a pick up ball game in the field. Was there arguing? Of course. Did some leave mad? Of course. But it was a great place to learn some skills that come in real handy as an adult.

    So what is it about the Body of Christ where this should be able to happen with commitment and love that it can’t anymore? We need a guru to go to?

    I am seeing more and more church staffs running the church and making decisions from everything to when the gym is open to what is taught in SS the adult volunteers are simply to fall in line and PAY the staff to tell them what to do.

    Have Americans lost their minds? When do adults want to grow up?

  443. Gram3 wrote:

    Typically I’m not one to carp over language or demand PC terminology, but in the context of his view of women, it actually reflects what he believes: women are made *for* men in the sense of being created to be the male’s assistant in pursuing the male’s objectives. Females are not considered as persons who join *with* males to achieve God’s purposes rather than being “under” males to achieve the male’s objectives.

    That is exactly what Matt Chandler says, clearly and distinctly, in “A Beautiful Design, part 7”!

  444. Darlene wrote:

    Jesus himself in Luke 2 is said to have submitted Himself to His parents, the very same world picked up by Paul in all the marriage passages. If the perfect Son of God submitted Himself to His parents, how can submission in itself imply inequality?

    But God in the fleshs’ parents wanted Him to grow up, too. Sigh.(Hee Hee) JS that is not just low hanging fruit, that is right off the ground.

  445. @ refugee:
    Just wanted to clarify that I didn’t write those reasons for people teaching these doctrines. I think that we encounter people who believe various things for a variety of reasons. There are men I’ve known who believe this who had, as far as I know, good fathers. Same for the women who believe this. I do not know any of the first-tier Gospel Glitterati personally, so I cannot speak to why they maintain such bizarre views of male/female relationships within the Body of Christ. What I do know is that Female Subordinationism is not the answer to the manifold social and family problems that we face. There is no Kingdom power in man-made laws, but the Spirit can transform our relationships just like he can transform our individual selves into Christ’s image. Imagine a world filled with people who were imitating Christ instead of John Piper or Wayne Grudem.

  446. Will M wrote:

    The holder of the keys—the church—is being called upon to assess a person’s life and profession of faith and then to make a heavenly sanctioned and public pronouncement affirming or denying the person’s citizenship in the kingdom and inclusion in the church.”

    Wow. Just… wow. Hubris, anyone?

  447. Gram3 wrote:

    Moo’s conclusion regarding the meaning of verse 15 is “6) It is not through active teaching and ruling activities that Christian women will be saved, but by faithfulness to their proper role, exemplified in motherhood.”

    Yes, they take a clear “salvation” word, transliterated, it is SOZO, known for “SAVEorRESCUE” and then redefine it to “sanctification” which is translitered as hagiasmos. Now, no where do we see having children is part of sanctification. What would Mary Magdalene done about that?

    Ironically they do the opposite with Gal 3:28 to make it fit their “equal but not equal” doctrine.

    My point is that if you start tracking what they do with certain texts, they contradict themselves often!

    So it makes sense women are saved through THE childbearing (of Messiah). We tend to forget that Paul plays on words and concepts in other places. He is doing this with the fertility cult issue in Ephesus.

  448. @ Darlene:
    You make some very good points which illustrate that the bottom line is that the wife’s view is irrelevant because it is only valid if it is accepted by her husband. It cannot have independent validity which is the same thing as saying that they Holy Spirit’s activity in the life and mind of the wife is irrelevant. Everything must be mediated via the husband.

    JS like many others confuses the *action* or *attitude* of a person who submits with the *status* of a person who is a subordinate. A subordinate must submit because a subordinate is a subordinate. A person of superior or equal status can choose to submit or to have a generally submissive attitude. The Female Subordinationists are very skilled at using this tactic of conflating and confusing submission with subordination.

    The Bible nowhere subordinates one human person to another human person. The Bible instructs all who are in Christ to demonstrate the attitude which was in Christ which is spelled out in Philippians 2. And of course, all humans and other creatures are subordinate to Christ and to the Trinity.

  449. Nancy2 wrote:

    Gram3 wrote:

    Typically I’m not one to carp over language or demand PC terminology, but in the context of his view of women, it actually reflects what he believes: women are made *for* men in the sense of being created to be the male’s assistant in pursuing the male’s objectives. Females are not considered as persons who join *with* males to achieve God’s purposes rather than being “under” males to achieve the male’s objectives.

    That is exactly what Matt Chandler says, clearly and distinctly, in “A Beautiful Design, part 7″!

    Pure “Vision Forum,” as well. (see Doug Phillips, Geoff Botkin, the Botkin daughters, etc.)

  450. Nancy2 wrote:

    That is exactly what Matt Chandler says, clearly and distinctly, in “A Beautiful Design, part 7″!

    I have heard “God’s good and beautiful design” so many times I recoil when I hear those words. Because they are being used to sell something which is not good, not beautiful, and not God’s design. God told us in Genesis what he considered “very good” and it is not what the Female Subordinationists are calling good.

    Notice that my request for the textual location where God ordained hierarchy is still out there. So far without any response.

  451. Lydia wrote:

    @ Gram3:
    I have decided to go with “BeautifulBadBully”. Thanks.

    I’m thinking of changing my screenname to Bullygram. Congratulations! You have received a Bullygram!

  452. Gram3 wrote:

    Imagine a world filled with people who were imitating Christ instead of John Piper or Wayne Grudem.

    Too good to be true. Sadly.

  453. @ Gram3:

    Hey, have you ever seem Rumpole of the Bailey? We could steal from his “She who must be obeyed” to “He who must be obeyed” to describe male Christian church employees.
    GovPappy wrote:

    What that doesn’t change is that ESS ideas are apparently being put out by many scholarly types and big names with followings in reformed circles, as Gram and others have said, and the followers are apparently swallowing that line of thinking with the rest of their scholarship without much discernment.

    They are teaching it to young minds full of mush in many SBC seminaries and others with a Reformed bent. Even before that in youth groups and undergrad schools like Boyce or if they are in college groups hanging on Pipers words. Denny Burk, dean of Boyce, is Mr. ESS.

    We have a generation of young men in evangelicalism that, for the most part, this is what they have been taught without questioning it. Think of it. This is how they have been introduced to the Trinity. The SBC is not safe. the Presbyterians are not safe from it. And probably more that I don’t know about. It spread so fast before I really caught on to what was happening.

  454. Lydia wrote:

    So it makes sense women are saved through THE childbearing (of Messiah). We tend to forget that Paul plays on words and concepts in other places. He is doing this with the fertility cult issue in Ephesus.

    Moo allows that “The Childbearing” is a possible meaning. Then he expends a lot more words explaining how it really means saved by keeping to a role and does not mean saved in the sense of the way that Eve was saved from the consequences of her sin resulting from deception. Because everything must be interpreted through the lens of the supposed-but-never-demonstrated Order of Creation. Sigh…

  455. refugee wrote:

    Pure “Vision Forum,” as well. (see Doug Phillips, Geoff Botkin, the Botkin daughters, etc.)

    Yeah, that’s pretty much how my granddaddy felt about his mules. But, he did lead them, feed, them, and protect them, and provide for them. Them mules knew where the fences were, too!

  456. Ken P. wrote:

    I am a first time poster here, but I have posted at SBC Voices.

    You are welcome here, Ken P. It’s more chaotic than SBC, but I suspect we have more fun and we definitely cover more ground. 🙂

  457. js wrote:

    Ken P. wrote:
    js wrote:
    As of this point our church does not allow women elders in line with the church’s agreement with the Baptist Faith and Message 2000.
    js, this statement needs some clarification.
    From section VI – The Church, of the BFM 2000:
    Each congregation operates under the Lordship of Christ through democratic processes. In such a congregation each member is responsible and accountable to Christ as Lord. Its scriptural officers are pastors and deacons. While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.
    The term “Elder” is not found in the BFM 2000. If you mean “elder” as “pastor”, then your church is in agreement with the BFM 2000.
    I admit that I am old (54), but in my experience “elders” are what Presbyterians have. I had never heard of an elder in a Southern Baptist Church until the Neo-Cals came along. As for “Deacon” (which is basically an elder in most SBC churches I know of) women are allowed to serve in many churches as determined by the individual church. Plus, the Wake Forest Demon Elders just doesn’t have a good ring to it.
    I am a first time poster here, but I have posted at SBC Voices. From my experience, Dave Miller does have a very thin skin, which is the only thing thin about him.
    I used the term elder here because that is what is most commonly used here at TWW when talking about the NeoCals. I believe the terms pastor and elder are interchangeable and we use both terms in our church, though we do not view deacons as having the function of elders/pastors. You are right that the term elder in SBC life is mostly associated with the NeoCal movement but I have found in some records I have looked at from earlier times (1800’s-early 1900’s)that Southern Baptist churches records often used the term elder rather than pastor.

    The conflation of the terms “pastor” and “elder” is another piece of eisogesis pawned off on us unsuspecting believers by the NeoCals.

  458. Gram3 wrote:

    I have heard “God’s good and beautiful design” so many times I recoil when I hear those words. Because they are being used to sell something which is not good, not beautiful, and not God’s design. God told us in Genesis what he considered “very good” and it is not what the Female Subordinationists are calling good.

    Now, now, Gram3. You are clearly speaking from the very limited perspective of a female. We must consider how “good and beautiful” this “design” must be from the male perspective. Which, I must admit, is beyond the scope of my abilities. Not that I care …..

  459. Lydia wrote:

    Make daddy/husband feel successful and important and maybe he will take you on a special date.

    This whole “date night” thing makes me gag. I told my girl when I married her nearly 50 years ago that I loved her and if I changed my mind I would let her know. (just kidding of course, before you girls start hurling things at me)

  460. @ Lydia:
    You bring up a good point about the kids at a pickup game (or any childhood horse play). We did ok in such things with no “appointed leaders”. Natural leaders tended to emerge as the situation demanded (in my family it usually was my oldest sister).

    When we’re older and can make our own decisions, we’re supposed to hand over final decision-making authority to people who may or may not take the time to know us, and then we regress to the level of spiritual children unable to see that we must put on our shoes before heading outside. This makes no sense.

    Folks can sugar-coat it all they want, but that’s what it means. I’ve lived through that church dynamic 2 times, and almost a 3rd. No thanks!

  461. js wrote:

    What I am saying is they and CBE should have the right to promote their views. Sometimes our opposition can get close to censorship and that is a mistake IMO.

    Just curious, js—in what ways do you see TWW and its commenters getting close to censorship?

    I would love to see Strachan&company’s group collapse under the weight of their own wrongness but that doesn’t mean I think they shouldn’t be allowed to speak.

  462. @ GovPappy:
    Not only that, I’m supposed to gladly submit to “elder rule!”

    Please, tell me again why, in this age where I have the completed word and the Spirit inside me, why I need that extra level of authority over my head.

  463. js wrote:

    When you call all who hold a comp view Female Subordinationists and accuse them of believing women are inferior and questioning their belief in Scripture and their desire to read and study the text faithfully, you are lobbing a lot of accusations which, while not technically censorship, certainly leave you open to the charge of elitism and lack of generosity to those who, through studied consideration, come to different conclusions than you.

    Never mind my earlier question to you, js, you answered it.

    It is better not to use a word that you don’t mean, especially a word like censorship, which is currently too often used in attempts to shut down debate. Which is odd, isn’t it?

  464. mirele wrote:

    js wrote:

    I think Paul teaches that women are saved through childbearing too, because that is what the text says. I admit freely that I don’t know what it means, and I have read the possible explanations (including yours). There are lots of things in the Bible I don’t fully understand, as is true of any Christian.

    And, as a single childless woman, you have no idea what kind of a slap in the face that is. “Oh, you’re saved by your faith if you’re a man, but a woman…you’re saved by childbearing.” Right. *Facepalm.* (I’d note that most non-Evangelical Protestant scholars of the Bible do not believe Paul wrote 1 & 2 Timothy, Titus and a few other books. In part because of crazy stuff like that which undermines his teachings in Romans and other authentic books.)

    Nobody understands why I said that. It wasn’t to put down single women or to manipulate anybody in a debate point. I was simply saying I believe thst verse because that is what the text says. When Gram3, who brought the verse up in the first place, tried to pin me down with straw men, I took her bait and said I believed the verse because that’s what it says. Then I admitted that it is a widely disputed verse and that I am not sure on its meaning. There was no motivation to put anybody down for not having children.

  465. KMD wrote:

    js wrote:

    Ken P. wrote:
    js wrote:
    As of this point our church does not allow women elders in line with the church’s agreement with the Baptist Faith and Message 2000.
    js, this statement needs some clarification.
    From section VI – The Church, of the BFM 2000:
    Each congregation operates under the Lordship of Christ through democratic processes. In such a congregation each member is responsible and accountable to Christ as Lord. Its scriptural officers are pastors and deacons. While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.
    The term “Elder” is not found in the BFM 2000. If you mean “elder” as “pastor”, then your church is in agreement with the BFM 2000.
    I admit that I am old (54), but in my experience “elders” are what Presbyterians have. I had never heard of an elder in a Southern Baptist Church until the Neo-Cals came along. As for “Deacon” (which is basically an elder in most SBC churches I know of) women are allowed to serve in many churches as determined by the individual church. Plus, the Wake Forest Demon Elders just doesn’t have a good ring to it.
    I am a first time poster here, but I have posted at SBC Voices. From my experience, Dave Miller does have a very thin skin, which is the only thing thin about him.
    I used the term elder here because that is what is most commonly used here at TWW when talking about the NeoCals. I believe the terms pastor and elder are interchangeable and we use both terms in our church, though we do not view deacons as having the function of elders/pastors. You are right that the term elder in SBC life is mostly associated with the NeoCal movement but I have found in some records I have looked at from earlier times (1800’s-early 1900’s)that Southern Baptist churches records often used the term elder rather than pastor.

    The conflation of the terms “pastor” and “elder” is another piece of eisogesis pawned off on us unsuspecting believers by the NeoCals.

    How is conflation of the terms eisigesis?

  466. Lydia wrote:

    Darlene wrote:

    Jesus himself in Luke 2 is said to have submitted Himself to His parents, the very same world picked up by Paul in all the marriage passages. If the perfect Son of God submitted Himself to His parents, how can submission in itself imply inequality?

    But God in the fleshs’ parents wanted Him to grow up, too. Sigh.(Hee Hee) JS that is not just low hanging fruit, that is right off the ground.

    But the point is submission does not equal inequality.

  467. Patrice wrote:

    Ken P. wrote:
    I am a first time poster here, but I have posted at SBC Voices.
    You are welcome here, Ken P. It’s more chaotic than SBC, but I suspect we have more fun and we definitely cover more ground.

    And we have a sense of humor.

  468. KMD wrote:

    The conflation of the terms “pastor” and “elder” is another piece of eisogesis pawned off on us unsuspecting believers by the NeoCals.

    Oh, I totally agree. In fact, I don’t think we even get “pastor” right. Since when did it mean CEO of a religious non profit with an elder board of directors?

    But my favs are:

    Teaching Pastor
    Worship pastor
    Senior Pastor

    One mega I know had about 30 staff “pastors”. There was a pastor of giving, pastor of missions in America, pastor of missions abroad, Pastor of seniors, Pastor of hospital/nursing homes, well you get the picture.

  469. GovPappy wrote:

    You bring up a good point about the kids at a pickup game

    Which brings up another one of my questions that goes unanswered. How can four men play multiple rounds of golf without one being the Authoritative Leader? Some rounds one guy is the leader and other rounds another guy is the leader. One leads in driving, an maybe another leads in putting. Personally, I lead in worm murdering. The point is that men do a *lot* of things in groups of men without one always being the designated leader now and forever more amen. It is only when the prospect of listening to the directive and personal voice of a woman that certain men get huffy about needing a Leader to decide things. Ridiculous.

  470. Gram3 wrote:

    js wrote:

    There is a place for CBE and for CBMW in my book, so long as neither makes the mistake of saying the gospel IS complementarianism or the gospel IS egalitarianism.

    CBMW says that Female Subordinationism is essential to picture the Gospel and transmit it effectively. They very carefully word this so that they are not technically making it a “Gospel Issue.” Frankly, I don’t much respect people who have to wordsmith everything so that it means something other than what they are saying. They know they can’t say women are not equal and not equal, so they make up ESS. They know that gender has absolutely nothing to do with the Gospel, but the need the Gospel as a cloak for their real agenda of female subjugation. And, yes, that is what it is. If you are denying the agency of a person, you are denying their full personhood. Period. Recall Jim Crow which was a thing during a big part of my life.

    As a Bible-believer, I assume you believe homosexual behavior is sinful. If a homosexual person comes to me professing to be a Christian and wanting to live to honor God, I will tell them that they can honor God with their lives by living in celibacy and nurturing friendship and life with others. They object, that’s not fair, I was born this way! I reply lovingly that that may be the case, yet the Bible teaches that homosexual behavior is sin and you must seek not to engage in that sin if you want to follow Jesus. Now, as a Bible-believer, have I denied the homosexuals full personhood by telling them they should not pursue homosexual relationships? I know many here would say yes, but I am talking about those of us who hold to traditionally accepted teaching on homosexuality and a high view of Scripture. Am I subjugating them to injustice or am I calling them to obedience to God, even if they can’t fully understand it or fully accept it?

  471. js wrote:

    When Gram3, who brought the verse up in the first place, tried to pin me down with straw men, I took her bait and said I believed the verse because that’s what it says

    Straw men? Where did I put out a straw man? I asked how one verse can mean what it plainly says while another verse that is tied to it both grammatically and rhetorically does not mean what it plainly says. Citing Moo does not help your case since he, the scholar, basically says that it is perfectly valid to switch hermeneutics in mid-argument and to put words into Paul’s mouth who knew perfectly well that Genesis does not ever teach a hierarchy based on the temporal order of Creation.

  472. @ js:
    I did not accuse anyone of thinking that women are inferior. I cannot get inside the minds of people nor judge their motivations with any degree of certainty. What I can do is point out that saying that one class of human beings is always subordinate to another class of human beings is inconsistent with those two classes of human beings also being equal ontologically. That is why they have to launder their illogical thinking through speculation regarding the mystery of the intra-Trinitarian relationships.

    I did not accuse anyone of refusing to study the Bible. I pointed out that the Female Subordinationists use an inconsistent hermeneutic and employ liberal amounts of eisegesis. That is not an accusation. That is a demonstrable fact which I have shown repeatedly.

    I did not say that Female Subordinationists do not believe the Bible. I have said that they misinterpret it given their own (my own) presuppositions regarding the nature of the Bible and regarding the authority of the Bible, and regarding a conservative hermeneutic. I’m saying they are inserting words into the text (Grudem), they are using an inconsistent hermeneutic as I have already discussed, and that many people put Grudem’s word or Piper’s word or, indeed Moo’s word over the words of the Bible.

  473. js wrote:

    But the point is submission does not equal inequality.

    No, submission is not equivalent to inequality. However, subordination now and forever solely due to the circumstances of one’s birth certainly is inequality. The modern West recognizes this fact, and that is why they have to invent an Eternally Subordinate Son.

  474. js wrote:

    Jesus himself in Luke 2 is said to have submitted Himself to His parents, the very same world picked up by Paul in all the marriage passages. If the perfect Son of God submitted Himself to His parents, how can submission in itself imply inequality?
    But God in the fleshs’ parents wanted Him to grow up, too. Sigh.(Hee Hee) JS that is not just low hanging fruit, that is right off the ground.

    Not when adults are submitting to ONE ANOTHER in the Body of Christ or a marriage. But you are not applying it that way.

    You are buying into collectivist thinking: “Some animals are more equal than others”. Animal Farm, George Orwell.

    You are slapping a plastic fish on collectivist thinking which also presents a facade of equality. Oh yes, we are all equal we just have different “roles” that are assigned by those who know best for us that are NOT biological. You comrade, are needed at the Lada factory while your brother will go to the Leningrad Institute for Mechanical and Optical Science.
    But never forget you are both equal and valued comrades in the people’s republic.

  475. js wrote:

    …. They object, that’s not fair, I was born this way! I reply lovingly that that may be the case, yet the Bible teaches that homosexual behavior is sin and you must seek not to engage in that sin if you want to follow Jesus. Now, as a Bible-believer, have I denied the homosexuals full personhood by telling them they should not pursue homosexual relationships? I know many here would say yes, but I am talking about those of us who hold to traditionally accepted teaching on homosexuality and a high view of Scripture. Am I subjugating them to injustice or am I calling them to obedience to God, even if they can’t fully understand it or fully accept it?

    So, can you deny women “full personhood” because we were “born this way”. By “born this way”, I mean because we were born females and not males. After all, we can not be granted full membership in most churches because we are female.

  476. @ js:
    I would say that a celibate homosexual occupies the same status as an unmarried heterosexual. I do not believe for a multitude of reasons that orientation, in itself, is a sin. I also do not think that homosexual orientation is how God created us to relate, just like the way my brain and other parts of my body work is not the way God created them to work.

    What does that have to do with Female Subordinationism? I think that a celibate person with a homosexual orientation can do whatever anyone else can do in the church. Perhaps I am missing your point.

    Where does God ordain a hierarchy of male over female, and where does God ordain a male clergy class?

  477. @ Lydia:
    I’m sure there’s a logical fallacy there. I’m just not familiar enough with them to know which one it is.

  478. js wrote:

    Now, as a Bible-believer, have I denied the homosexuals full personhood by telling them they should not pursue homosexual relationships?

    That is an argument that certain justices (Kennedy?) made. I have not made that argument since I do not believe that marriage is essential to personhood.

  479. mirele wrote:

    js wrote:

    My personal opinion is that abuse exists wherever humans gather in groups in any sustained way and that it is not endemic to one type of system over another. The types of abuses may change but the human struggle for power and control is as old as Eden.

    But we’re not supposed to specifically look at the abuses engendered by Neo-Calvinism, and it’s just *wrong* to talk about the great model for the Neo-Calvinists, one Jean Cauvin, and his behavior when he was the theocratic leader over Geneva. Nope, can’t talk about that at all. Because everyone does it.

    Sin leveling, anyone?

    Where did I ever say any of that? It’s not sin-leveling to bring a different perspective to the table. I did think the story Deb did on Emerson was disingenuous because the same kind of sin happens among all groups and I didn’t see how his sin was in any way linked to SGM or the YRR movement. I guarantee you as much as I am able that if Emerson were pastor of First Church of Anywhere USA and not a pastor at SGM his story would have never seen the light of day here. What bothered me about that is that it smacked of a concerted effort to tie any sin among the Reformed to the movement itself and I just don’t think that’s right. In fact, I do believe in most cases the kinds of sins and abuses brought up on TWW are replicated in all kinds of churches. If you don’t think there are some Mark Driscolls floating around out there in the Charismatic world (where many of the churches have women pastors by the way) you are not paying attention. TWW itself has covered many child sex abuse cases in IFB and other circles and you can find cases from all kinds of churches every week. That is not sin-leveling, it is a fact.

    The exception to what I am saying is TVC scandal. I don’t even think Mahaney’s scandal is tied too deeply to the theology (I know I’m gonna get blasted for saying that). I think Mahaney’s scandal was relational rather than theological. The good old boy network and protection of interests was more the culprit than a specific theology. The reason I say that is because I have seen similar cover ups in a variety of churches for various reasons. Just look what happened with Tony Jones’ friends. I think that is more what we have with CJ.

    But TVC was different. Todd Wilhelm too, is different, though less well-known outside TWW. With TVC, I do see that the system was part of the problem. So the SBCVoices anonymous poster brings what I think are some helpful biblical correctives and we have a discussion of these issues. Refining happens. Ideas get rethought and change happens. It is slow but it is real.

    I don’t think the YRR have all the right answers and do all the right things. And when they sin it is right for them to be called to account. Why that can’t coexist with a healthy look at other groups who may be bringing damage to the body is beyond me, especially if your tagline is “Dissecting Christian Trends.” I don’t see anywhere in what I’ve written an attempt to shut down any and all criticism of the YRR but I do occasionally write against what I see as unfair criticism.

  480. js wrote:

    Am I subjugating them to injustice or am I calling them to obedience to God, even if they can’t fully understand it or fully accept it?

    You are implicitly assuming what you have not yet proved, namely that women are subordinate to men by God’s ordination. In other words, you are deflecting from the point of whether God ordained a hierarchy to the “fairness” question. I have never said God is unfair or that we are talking about fairness in the first place. I am talking about what God has revealed in his written word. I say he has not ordained a hierarchy, and you think he has. I have asked you where that ordination is in the text, and you have so far declined to provide that proof. But you want to change the subject to “fairness” for some reason.

  481. Gram3 wrote:

    @ js:
    I did not accuse anyone of thinking that women are inferior. I cannot get inside the minds of people nor judge their motivations with any degree of certainty. What I can do is point out that saying that one class of human beings is always subordinate to another class of human beings is inconsistent with those two classes of human beings also being equal ontologically. That is why they have to launder their illogical thinking through speculation regarding the mystery of the intra-Trinitarian relationships.

    I did not accuse anyone of refusing to study the Bible. I pointed out that the Female Subordinationists use an inconsistent hermeneutic and employ liberal amounts of eisegesis. That is not an accusation. That is a demonstrable fact which I have shown repeatedly.

    I did not say that Female Subordinationists do not believe the Bible. I have said that they misinterpret it given their own (my own) presuppositions regarding the nature of the Bible and regarding the authority of the Bible, and regarding a conservative hermeneutic. I’m saying they are inserting words into the text (Grudem), they are using an inconsistent hermeneutic as I have already discussed, and that many people put Grudem’s word or Piper’s word or, indeed Moo’s word over the words of the Bible.

    What verses are you talking about where Grudem inserts words?

  482. Gram3 wrote:

    I would say that a celibate homosexual occupies the same status as an unmarried heterosexual.

    Should be celibate unmarried heterosexual. Sorry for any confusion.

  483. BeenThereDoneThat wrote:

    @ Lydia:
    I’m sure there’s a logical fallacy there. I’m just not familiar enough with them to know which one it is.

    Red herring, in my estimation. Don’t want to talk about where the Bible says hierarchy, so let’s talk about fairness.

  484. Gram3 wrote:

    js wrote:

    Am I subjugating them to injustice or am I calling them to obedience to God, even if they can’t fully understand it or fully accept it?

    You are implicitly assuming what you have not yet proved, namely that women are subordinate to men by God’s ordination. In other words, you are deflecting from the point of whether God ordained a hierarchy to the “fairness” question. I have never said God is unfair or that we are talking about fairness in the first place. I am talking about what God has revealed in his written word. I say he has not ordained a hierarchy, and you think he has. I have asked you where that ordination is in the text, and you have so far declined to provide that proof. But you want to change the subject to “fairness” for some reason.

    I understand you to mean that belief in roles in marriage of servant-leadership and submission means inherent inferiority or second-class status for women. Thus one class of people lording over another solely on the basis of an uncontrollable reality (gender).

  485. js wrote:

    What verses are you talking about where Grudem inserts words?

    The ESV inserts “symbol of” into 1 Corinthians 11:10. The insertion of the totally unnecessary “symbol of” makes the verse mean exactly the opposite of what Paul is saying which is that a woman must have authority on/over her own head. Not that she must have a symbol of someone else’s authority on her head to demonstrate that she is in proper submission.

    Grudem would have a fuschia fit if a “liberal feminist” did that to the text.

  486. @ Gram3:
    Grudem is the editor of the ESV, and the ESV is promoted as an “essentially literal” translation. That is false advertising in this instance. Grudem knows perfectly well that the verse makes good sense without his editorial addition, but what Paul actually wrote does not fit Grudem’s narrative, so the Holy Spirit gets edited. Just like the Eternal Son gets demoted in service to Grudem’s agenda. And that is why I say that these men are not conservatives when it comes to the text.

  487. @ js:
    You are free to disagree with us on our reporting on Gene Emerson. I stand by the post. Emerson was a high profile pastor in a sin-sniffing ‘family of churches’. He played prominent role in the firing of several SGM pastors. The hypocrisy makes this a story that needed to be made public.

  488. @ BeenThereDoneThat:

    Hee hee. Thing is I have heard the same arguments js is making for many years. It is simply amazing to me that they trot out “children” submitting and then bring in the whole homosexual issue. As if all adult women fit into the children or homosexual categories. What is up with that?

    The way they have been taught to mind map scriptures is unbelievable. But it makes perfect sense to them. Perhaps that is because they have never really thought it through. They start with a wrong premise and build from there until adult women are really children.

  489. js wrote:

    I understand you to mean that belief in roles in marriage of servant-leadership and submission means inherent inferiority or second-class status for women. Thus one class of people lording over another solely on the basis of an uncontrollable reality (gender).

    I am saying that the notion of one gender having the Role of Leader and the other gender having the Role of follower solely because of their gender is not a Biblical idea and cannot be found in the text.

    As I have said, I believe that the submission is mutual among all members of the Body of Christ. I believe that an instruction to one person to submit is not a grant of authority to the other person.

    Please supply the reference where God ordains roles of Leader and Submitter in the actual text.

  490. Gram3 wrote:

    js wrote:

    Am I subjugating them to injustice or am I calling them to obedience to God, even if they can’t fully understand it or fully accept it?

    You are implicitly assuming what you have not yet proved, namely that women are subordinate to men by God’s ordination. In other words, you are deflecting from the point of whether God ordained a hierarchy to the “fairness” question. I have never said God is unfair or that we are talking about fairness in the first place. I am talking about what God has revealed in his written word. I say he has not ordained a hierarchy, and you think he has. I have asked you where that ordination is in the text, and you have so far declined to provide that proof. But you want to change the subject to “fairness” for some reason.

    No, I’m not, I am only saying that wives should submit to their own husbands. That’s what the text says in multiple places. Your use of the word Subordination implies inferiority where none exists (Gal. 3:28). Submission is voluntary and limited in scope (not all men, but husbands) and is counterbalanced by the command to the husband to love and care for his wife, which is also voluntary. That people over apply these truths or abuse these truths doesn’t make them any less true.

    NT Wright says in his Colossians commentary, “If the home is to be a means of grace it must be a place of rules. The alternative to rule is not freedom but the unconstitutional (and often unconscious) tyranny of the most selfish member.”

  491. Gram3 wrote:

    Where does God ordain a hierarchy of male over female, and where does God ordain a male clergy class?

    A bigger problem they have is that there is absolutely NO prohibition to women leading or teaching men in the OT. There is no Law. Now, what is modeled by sinful, fallen people is another issue. But from God there is NO LAW prohibiting women from leading or teaching men. You simply cannot find it. And God is very clear about His Law.

    However, they want us to believe there is a NEW LAW in the NT prohibiting women from teaching or leading men. How can it be that Paul is instituting new laws?

  492. Gram3 wrote:

    js wrote:

    I understand you to mean that belief in roles in marriage of servant-leadership and submission means inherent inferiority or second-class status for women. Thus one class of people lording over another solely on the basis of an uncontrollable reality (gender).

    I am saying that the notion of one gender having the Role of Leader and the other gender having the Role of follower solely because of their gender is not a Biblical idea and cannot be found in the text.

    As I have said, I believe that the submission is mutual among all members of the Body of Christ. I believe that an instruction to one person to submit is not a grant of authority to the other person.

    Please supply the reference where God ordains roles of Leader and Submitter in the actual text.

    What does a person submit to? A leader. When Paul tells us to submit to governing authorities in Romans 13 he is assuming those leaders are our authorities, leaders invested with the power of the sword.

    Why doesn’t Paul say, “husbands lead your wives rather than husbands love your wives?” I think it is because he knows the tendency of the heart to dominate and the culture of his day which would lead to domineering husbands. Sadly, some teaching today from the comp camp leads to this domineering because it distorts the biblical picture. But that picture is distorted not because these roles of submission and servant-leadership don’t exist but because they are poorly defined (usually by means of overdefinition, leading to so-called biblical prescriptions for specific relational dynamics where the Bible gives none).

  493. Lydia wrote:

    @ BeenThereDoneThat:

    Hee hee. Thing is I have heard the same arguments js is making for many years. It is simply amazing to me that they trot out “children” submitting and then bring in the whole homosexual issue. As if all adult women fit into the children or homosexual categories. What is up with that?

    The way they have been taught to mind map scriptures is unbelievable. But it makes perfect sense to them. Perhaps that is because they have never really thought it through. They start with a wrong premise and build from there until adult women are really children.

    You make a connection that was neither implied nor intended. The point is that the principle of submission is evident in Scripture and at times this submission is to people (parents) or to God’s principles with which we might disagree (homosexuality).

  494. Lydia wrote:

    Perhaps that is because they have never really thought it through.

    That was my personal experience. It was never an issue in my marriage or in my birth family or in my professional life. I am a real complementarian, not a Female Subordinationist calling myself a complementarian. Due to painful circumstances that were basically put upon us an people dear to us, I saw the System for what it really is, and I started studying. Then, when I saw how “conservatives” whom I had trusted had twisted the text and how illogical their reasoning is and how slippery their language is, I got a bit upset.

    My mission field is People Who Assume Because They Never Thought About It And Believe What They Are Told By People They Trust. The fields are ripe.

  495. js wrote:

    NT Wright says in his Colossians commentary, “If the home is to be a means of grace it must be a place of rules. The alternative to rule is not freedom but the unconstitutional (and often unconscious) tyranny of the most selfish member.”

    So, NT Wright was talking about hierarchy in marriage? Wouldn’t the most selfish member be the one who feels entitled simply because of believing they have leadership over another by way of gender? That is a horrible sin trap for you guys. Mutuality works best. All those pesky 58 “one another’s”.

  496. Deb wrote:

    @ js:
    You are free to disagree with us on our reporting on Gene Emerson. I stand by the post. Emerson was a high profile pastor in a sin-sniffing ‘family of churches’. He played prominent role in the firing of several SGM pastors. The hypocrisy makes this a story that needed to be made public.

    You are free to publish it of course as you see fit. I appreciate the opportunity to disagree. I would have not objected to linking the story at the top of the home page but I thought the associations made with the story itself were over the top. But we agree to disagree on that and I don’t think one or two stories with which I disagree can in any way take away from the fact that you all very often do excellent work.

  497. js wrote:

    You make a connection that was neither implied nor intended. The point is that the principle of submission is evident in Scripture and at times this submission is to people (parents) or to God’s principles with which we might disagree (homosexuality).

    Actually you are making the illustrations with even realizing what you are saying. HOw does the homosexual illustration apply to all women?

    I know the game, Js. I agree to mutual submission as believers in marriage and the Body of Christ. Period. Do you know your same arguments were used to protect chattel slavery by Christian pastors, too? Oh sure, they are equal in the eyes of God for salvation….just inferior in real life.

  498. Lydia wrote:

    js wrote:

    NT Wright says in his Colossians commentary, “If the home is to be a means of grace it must be a place of rules. The alternative to rule is not freedom but the unconstitutional (and often unconscious) tyranny of the most selfish member.”

    So, NT Wright was talking about hierarchy in marriage? Wouldn’t the most selfish member be the one who feels entitled simply because of believing they have leadership over another by way of gender? That is a horrible sin trap for you guys. Mutuality works best. All those pesky 58 “one another’s”.

    If you think the biblical role for male servant-leadership leads to entitlement you obviously haven’t studied Ephesians 5 very carefully.

  499. js wrote:

    No, I’m not, I am only saying that wives should submit to their own husbands.

    So we are in Ephesians now and not 1 Timothy and it is OK for women to teach and preach to men?

    I do not dispute *at all* that wives should submit themselves or have and attitude of submission that conforms to the example set by Christ. What I do dispute is that said submission or submissive attitude or deference is exclusively one-way for all time and under all circumstances. Grammatically you have to go through verse 21 to get to verse 22, and verse 21 is pretty non-exclusive.

    With respect to the other verses addressing the household codes which were in effect *in Greek culture* we have to account for all the evidence. And interpreting what a text “plainly says” while disregarding its cultural and literary and authorial and canonical context is not a good idea. If that is permissible, then I can have all sorts of fun with the Bible. And indeed cults do exactly that.

  500. js wrote:

    NT Wright says in his Colossians commentary

    N.T. Wright is no more the Holy Spirit than Wayne Grudem or Gram3. He has an opinion and some nifty outfits.

  501. Lydia wrote:

    How can it be that Paul is instituting new laws?

    I have no idea. But I do not subscribe to the theory that Paul cannot reason and that Paul did not know the Hebrew scriptures backward and forward. So, no there is no OT law in 1 Corinthians 14 just as there is no Creation hierarchy in 1 Timothy 2. But we can put words in Paul’s mouth that make him sound like a fool, and I really do not think Paul was a fool.

  502. Gram3 wrote:

    BeenThereDoneThat wrote:
    @ Lydia:
    I’m sure there’s a logical fallacy there. I’m just not familiar enough with them to know which one it is.
    Red herring, in my estimation. Don’t want to talk about where the Bible says hierarchy, so let’s talk about fairness.

    Oh, please. Let’s do talk about fairness! How about the book of Job. Job suffered enormous losses, pain, and hardships. Was that fair? No. It was the work of Satan. God allowed Satan to test Job.
    Do you think God is allowing Satan to influence people and do anything that creates “unfairness” in the modern world?

  503. Lydia wrote:

    js wrote:

    You make a connection that was neither implied nor intended. The point is that the principle of submission is evident in Scripture and at times this submission is to people (parents) or to God’s principles with which we might disagree (homosexuality).

    Actually you are making the illustrations with even realizing what you are saying. HOw does the homosexual illustration apply to all women?

    I know the game, Js. I agree to mutual submission as believers in marriage and the Body of Christ. Period. Do you know your same arguments were used to protect chattel slavery by Christian pastors, too? Oh sure, they are equal in the eyes of God for salvation….just inferior in real life.

    I’m not playing a game. In marriage I believe wives submit to the servant leadership of their husbands while maintaining full equality as children of God and full responsibility to live faithfully before God. Women are in no way inferior to men but they do have different roles in marriage. This is much different than slavery where full personhood was denied. I deny that belief in submission and servant leadership in marriage in any way denies full personhood.

  504. Gram3 wrote:

    js wrote:

    NT Wright says in his Colossians commentary

    N.T. Wright is no more the Holy Spirit than Wayne Grudem or Gram3. He has an opinion and some nifty outfits.

    But he is hardly a part of the YRR.

  505. js wrote:

    If you think the biblical role for male servant-leadership leads to entitlement you obviously haven’t studied Ephesians 5 very carefully.

    Actually I dove into the Greek years ago. And the historical context. When a doctrine applies to me because of gender, I decided to spend years studying each text that has been used to promote a pink/blue Christianity. I came across some very bizarre stuff such as Isaiah 3:12 being totally translated wrong because of a jot and tittle misplaced by a scribe. It makes a ton more sense when translated properly. How Teshuqa in Gen 3 was changed in the 1300’s by a monk named Pagnino who translated it from “turning” to “desire” and changed the way we understand it today with sexual overtones that were never there. And so on ad nauseum. I could go on and on. Gram brought up the 1 Corin 11 where words were actually ADDED! How is that for scary?

    And please stop using “servant leadership”. There is no such thing. It seems to have many fathers but I know it from a pilot project with Ken Blanchard who coined it for mega church pastors who wanted a softer image but with power…20 years ago.

  506. Gram3 wrote:

    js wrote:

    No, I’m not, I am only saying that wives should submit to their own husbands.

    So we are in Ephesians now and not 1 Timothy and it is OK for women to teach and preach to men?

    I do not dispute *at all* that wives should submit themselves or have and attitude of submission that conforms to the example set by Christ. What I do dispute is that said submission or submissive attitude or deference is exclusively one-way for all time and under all circumstances. Grammatically you have to go through verse 21 to get to verse 22, and verse 21 is pretty non-exclusive.

    With respect to the other verses addressing the household codes which were in effect *in Greek culture* we have to account for all the evidence. And interpreting what a text “plainly says” while disregarding its cultural and literary and authorial and canonical context is not a good idea. If that is permissible, then I can have all sorts of fun with the Bible. And indeed cults do exactly that.

    Ephesians 5:21 is a classic verse on mutual submission, which I believe because that is what the text says. How do we submit to one another is the question of leadership and roles and there we disagree on what the text means.

  507. Patrice wrote:

    Gram3 wrote:
    Their operating assumptions are that women are more easily deceived and that women are, by nature, usurpers who desire to take over the rightful place of men.
    And human history has proven this to be true, again and again, full as it is with naive power-hungry women: their endless wars, colonizing, raping of the earth. Their ignorant academies, governments, arts, architectures. And endless books. It’s seen most in the sciences, of course, in which women always excel. Poor guys. They need so much help.
    sarc/

    Yeah….all those female usurpers of God’s will. History is replete with such examples. Thousands of women…millions and billions, in fact. Oh wait….

  508. Lydia wrote:

    js wrote:

    If you think the biblical role for male servant-leadership leads to entitlement you obviously haven’t studied Ephesians 5 very carefully.

    Actually I dove into the Greek years ago. And the historical context. When a doctrine applies to me because of gender, I decided to spend years studying each text that has been used to promote a pink/blue Christianity. I came across some very bizarre stuff such as Isaiah 3:12 being totally translated wrong because of a jot and tittle misplaced by a scribe. It makes a ton more sense when translated properly. How Teshuqa in Gen 3 was changed in the 1300’s by a monk named Pagnino who translated it from “turning” to “desire” and changed the way we understand it today with sexual overtones that were never there. And so on ad nauseum. I could go on and on. Gram brought up the 1 Corin 11 where words were actually ADDED! How is that for scary?

    And please stop using “servant leadership”. There is no such thing. It seems to have many fathers but I know it from a pilot project with Ken Blanchard who coined it for mega church pastors who wanted a softer image but with power…20 years ago.

    I’ll stop using servant leadership when I stop reading Female Subordinationism, not before.

    So you think after your exhaustive study that a life of servant leadership in which the husband loves his wife as Christ loves the church is a ticket for selfishness?

  509. js wrote:

    But he is hardly a part of the YRR.

    I did not catch where he said men make the rules for the home from your quote. So a bit confused. And I agree with Gram, he is not the Holy Spirit. He is a very interesting scholar and I enjoy his books— especially as an ancient scholar.

  510. @ js:
    I think that Paul was speaking into the worldly cultures where he was planting the Gospel of the Kingdom, and that Kingdom culture is radically different from the various cultures Paul encountered. He had to destroy some presuppositions of the Judaizers at Galatia and the practice of Peter at Jerusalem. He had to confront women at Ephesus who were bringing the false doctrines of the Ephesian Artemis cult into the church. In the broader Greek culture which was also present in Ephesus and Colossae, the male head of household was the monarch who had absolute rule. Women, slaves, and children were his property to do with as he pleased.

    Therefore, Paul’s instructions *appear* at times to be contradictory because he was applying the New Creation Order to existing human orders. I can assure you that women who were told that they were free in Christ may well have thought that meant they were now independent of the man, a notion which Paul corrects in 1 Corinthians 11. Men needed to set aside their privilege as monarchs and love their wives! Love their wives? Wives were for producing children, not for love. Wives were for serving the lord of the house, not for being served.

    The not-so-short of it is that Paul was de-constructing man-made culture and building up the New Creation culture of mutual love, submission, deference, and honor. That would have been truly revolutionary in a shame/honor culture where one does not give up one’s honor to another.

  511. js wrote:

    So you think after your exhaustive study that a life of servant leadership in which the husband loves his wife as Christ loves the church is a ticket for selfishness?

    You cannot seem to understand that verse 21 is in there. How do you get around that? Seems selfish to me that you want to. :o)

    (Look at an interlinear. They even added a word to verse 22)

  512. The addition of that word makes total sense in that context and if you have studied the Greek text at all you would not be surprised at all to find how many times words are added for clarity, even in so-called literal translations. Dave Brunn’s book, “One Bible, Many Translations” illustrates all this nicely.

    I just spoke about verse 21 in a post above.

  513. js wrote:

    But he is hardly a part of the YRR.

    Indeed not. IIRC John Piper had a debate with him at ETS. I did not cite him. You did, and plenty of people are not YRR and still believe in Female Subordination. It’s just that it is a YRR distinctive.

  514. Gram3 wrote:

    js wrote:

    If you think the biblical role for male servant-leadership

    Where is this Role?

    Ephesians 5, Colossians 3, 1 Peter 3

  515. js wrote:

    How do we submit to one another is the question of leadership and roles and there we disagree on what the text means.

    A “role” is something you pretend to be. It is a horrible word to use to describe spiritual relationships between believers but without it, comp doctrine has huge problems.

  516. Gram3 wrote:

    js wrote:

    But he is hardly a part of the YRR.

    Indeed not. IIRC John Piper had a debate with him at ETS. I did not cite him. You did, and plenty of people are not YRR and still believe in Female Subordination. It’s just that it is a YRR distinctive.

    But that’s just it. If you tar everyone outside the YRR as Female Subordinationists and then link them with ESS and then call ESS a rank heresy pretty soon you have a pretty small Christianity. I know some of TWW readers would think Piper is a false teacher but probably not Wright.

  517. js wrote:

    I deny that belief in submission and servant leadership in marriage in any way denies full personhood.

    Please explain how Roles of Leader-Submitter which are not reversible are not a denial of personhood which includes personal agency. If I, as a married woman, have been assigned the Role of Submitter, I no longer have the same personal agency as my husband has since he must lead and I must submit. The Role thing is what is causing the problem. People are not Roles to be played, and marriage is not a game or a play.

  518. Lydia wrote:

    js wrote:

    How do we submit to one another is the question of leadership and roles and there we disagree on what the text means.

    A “role” is something you pretend to be. It is a horrible word to use to describe spiritual relationships between believers but without it, comp doctrine has huge problems.

    I’ll change it to “God-given calling.” Better?

  519. js wrote:

    So you think after your exhaustive study that a life of servant leadership in which the husband loves his wife as Christ loves the church is a ticket for selfishness?

    js, you are here pleading for male hierarchy and women subordination. No where have I seen you argue for mutual submission. So what am I to think?

  520. js wrote:

    I’m not playing a game. In marriage I believe wives submit to the servant leadership of their husbands while maintaining full equality as children of God and full responsibility to live faithfully before God. Women are in no way inferior to men but they do have different roles in marriage. This is much different than slavery where full personhood was denied. I deny that belief in submission and servant leadership in marriage in any way denies full personhood.

    Here we go again. Husbands and wives are equal. But, husbands must play the role of being the leaders and wives must play the role of being submissive servants. No, women are not inferior. We’re just commanded to play the roles of inferiors.

    Let’s not forget — in the days of Paul, wives were property. How does that factor into the roles we must play?

  521. js wrote:

    Ephesians 5:21 is a classic verse on mutual submission, which I believe because that is what the text says. How do we submit to one another is the question of leadership and roles and there we disagree on what the text means.

    Where are these Roles of Submitter and Leader? They are not in Genesis where we would expect to find them if indeed God ordained Roles according to gender. Where are the Roles assigned by God in Genesis or anywhere in the NT?

  522. Gram3 wrote:

    js wrote:

    I deny that belief in submission and servant leadership in marriage in any way denies full personhood.

    Please explain how Roles of Leader-Submitter which are not reversible are not a denial of personhood which includes personal agency. If I, as a married woman, have been assigned the Role of Submitter, I no longer have the same personal agency as my husband has since he must lead and I must submit. The Role thing is what is causing the problem. People are not Roles to be played, and marriage is not a game or a play.

    Just because we are not the same does not mean one or the other has less personhood. Men and women are different physically but not unequal because of those differences. Their God-given callings in marriage of submission and servant-leadership are different but do not inherently lead to denial of personhood.

  523. Nancy2 wrote:

    js wrote:

    I’m not playing a game. In marriage I believe wives submit to the servant leadership of their husbands while maintaining full equality as children of God and full responsibility to live faithfully before God. Women are in no way inferior to men but they do have different roles in marriage. This is much different than slavery where full personhood was denied. I deny that belief in submission and servant leadership in marriage in any way denies full personhood.

    Here we go again. Husbands and wives are equal. But, husbands must play the role of being the leaders and wives must play the role of being submissive servants. No, women are not inferior. We’re just commanded to play the roles of inferiors.

    Let’s not forget — in the days of Paul, wives were property. How does that factor into the roles we must play?

    You make the mistake of equating submission to inferiority when submission and service are actually at the heart of Christian ethics.

  524. Lydia wrote:

    js wrote:

    So you think after your exhaustive study that a life of servant leadership in which the husband loves his wife as Christ loves the church is a ticket for selfishness?

    js, you are here pleading for male hierarchy and women subordination. No where have I seen you argue for mutual submission. So what am I to think?

    I believe mutual submission is seen in husband and wife fulfilling their God-given callings in marriage.

  525. js wrote:

    I’ll stop using servant leadership when I stop reading Female Subordinationism, not before.

    If you are advocating for irreversible Roles of Leader and Submitter that are assigned solely on account of gender, then you are advocating for the subordination of females. It is really just about that simple. It doesn’t sound as nice as Complementarian which is a misleading term they use, but it certainly more accurately represents what you are advocating.

    Where did God assign those roles? How do guys organize their golf outings without having a designated Leader? Those are my evergreen questions which you don’t answer.

  526. Wow, I can’t speak to the validity any of the current disagreement, but kudos to js for at least trying to stay and engage though having a different viewpoint from the groupthink. I’ve been awol for a while from here because I felt that there was a change in the community here not welcoming any differing views (not the Deebs, they remain the welcoming blog owners who allow different povs) and wow, it looks like I was right. Reading this comment stream and the way js is castigated and consistently interpreted in the worst possible light, and what they say restated in the worst way, comments have become mean and unwelcoming for any who disagree. Those who fight monsters should ensure they don’t become monsters themselves. I see a mirror image here of what happened to Serving Kids in Japan and Mirele on the SBC Voices articles comments, just different people doing the swarming. My view as an atheist outsider, feel free to ignore it. Js, props for trying to explain and stay calm without reverting to the same treatment you’re receiving.

    It was fun TWW. I wish all of you all the best. Deb and Dee, you do awesome work for the hurting and oppressed. It’s inspiring to see fellow humans taking care of others when they don’t have to. Learned a lot about confronting those in power and helping the powerless, I’ll treasure the lessons.

    Peace.

  527. js wrote:

    The addition of that word makes total sense in that context and if you have studied the Greek text at all you would not be surprised at all to find how many times words are added for clarity, even in so-called literal translations.

    Except that they render the borrowed participle as an imperative verb. I don’t think that can be defended by someone who takes the text seriously. There is a huge difference between an illustrative participle and an imperative.

  528. js wrote:

    You make the mistake of equating submission to inferiority when submission and service are actually at the heart of Christian ethics.

    That explains why churches can’t function without wimmen. After all, we are the very heart of everything Christian.

  529. js wrote:

    Gram3 wrote:
    js wrote:
    If you think the biblical role for male servant-leadership
    Where is this Role?
    Ephesians 5, Colossians 3, 1 Peter 3

    Where are there any Roles there? Where did God assign Roles in the first place? Not in Genesis 1:26-28 where the creation mandate is mutual and undifferentiated. The Father’s blessing is given to the Daughter as well as the Son in an undifferentiated way. So, there are no Roles there. Where are the Roles?

  530. js wrote:

    I believe mutual submission is seen in husband and wife fulfilling their God-given callings in marriage.

    I thought they were to be “one flesh”. To work together. Have you ever done an indepth study on Ezer Kenegdo? It is fascintating. God is referred to as an Ezer in the OT. It has “warrior” overtones.

    Bruce Ware says that women are not made in the “direct image” of God but are a derivative. It is amazing how far some will go to argue for preeminence. They coin nice words such as complimentarian or servant leader to make it sound like equal or even a sacrifice— to be preeminent.

    Mutuality is best. Gotta run

  531. Gram3 wrote:

    js wrote:

    The addition of that word makes total sense in that context and if you have studied the Greek text at all you would not be surprised at all to find how many times words are added for clarity, even in so-called literal translations.

    Except that they render the borrowed participle as an imperative verb. I don’t think that can be defended by someone who takes the text seriously. There is a huge difference between an illustrative participle and an imperative.

    Participles can often have an imperatival force. Even the NRSV (hardly a comp translation) renders both v. 21 and v. 22 with imperatives.

  532. Lydia wrote:

    js wrote:

    I believe mutual submission is seen in husband and wife fulfilling their God-given callings in marriage.

    I thought they were to be “one flesh”. To work together. Have you ever done an indepth study on Ezer Kenegdo? It is fascintating. God is referred to as an Ezer in the OT. It has “warrior” overtones.

    Bruce Ware says that women are not made in the “direct image” of God but are a derivative. It is amazing how far some will go to argue for preeminence. They coin nice words such as complimentarian or servant leader to make it sound like equal or even a sacrifice— to be preeminent.

    Mutuality is best. Gotta run

    I’m not Bruce Ware and I don’t agree with his conclusions on ESS and haven’t read him much.

    Thanks for the discussion.

  533. Gram3 wrote:

    js wrote:

    Gram3 wrote:
    js wrote:
    If you think the biblical role for male servant-leadership
    Where is this Role?
    Ephesians 5, Colossians 3, 1 Peter 3

    Where are there any Roles there? Where did God assign Roles in the first place? Not in Genesis 1:26-28 where the creation mandate is mutual and undifferentiated. The Father’s blessing is given to the Daughter as well as the Son in an undifferentiated way. So, there are no Roles there. Where are the Roles?

    Where is the Trinity? Show me the text. I’ve been looking for years for the magic Trinity text and I just can’t find it.

    If you can’t see the God-given callings I see I can’t make you see them.

  534. Nancy2 wrote:

    js wrote:

    You make the mistake of equating submission to inferiority when submission and service are actually at the heart of Christian ethics.

    That explains why churches can’t function without wimmen. After all, we are the very heart of everything Christian.

    🙂

    Submission and service are the heart of Christian ethics and are illustrated in the marriage relationship as husband and wife fulfill their God-given callings.

  535. @ Albuquerque Blue:
    I disagree with that assessment.

    It’s a hot topic because many of the people here have had bad experiences with the theology being argued.

    And js and/or us can leave at any time. Nobody is being bullied here. It’s not like we’ve taken over someone else’s blog. You’re seeing “groupthink” because the only people left talking about it on this thread are the ones arguing or interested in learning.

    The fact that js is the only one currently sticking around to argue his side is just unfortunate for his cause, but hardly anybody’s fault here. He’s espousing a cause that many here have been personally burned by, so of course they’re interested, and angered. Nobody’s calling names and assuming he’s an awful person that I’ve seen. It’s a hot disagreement, that’s all.

  536. @ Albuquerque Blue:
    If I have offended you in any way can you please point it out. How can we improve if we don’t know what you are talking about exactly? As a female it is very hard to constantly hear how we are less than a male when I know scriptures do not teach that. As an atheist that might not sound like a big deal to you, not sure.

    If I have made you feel unwelcome it certainly was not intentional as I am not really sure what you are referring to.

  537. JohnD wrote:

    Jeffrey J Chalmers wrote:
    But, I can NOT get my hands/mind around the concept that Calvanista’s are advocating the concept/need/requirement of a “mediator”, What?
    The Village Church’s “Church Discipline Guidelines” are on their website. This is what they say about sanctification: “The Lord created the method of church discipline as His intended means of sanctifying the church and her individual members. This is how he intends to sanctify His people and therefore failure on our part to carry out his desires is decidedly unloving.”
    They do concede elsewhere in the document that the Holy Spirit can do some of the work of sanctification without them.

    Church discipline as the “intended” means of sanctifying the church? Even the Orthodox Church, of which I am a member, and which these NeoCal types would say has a controlling hierarchy (which btw is not true), do not think the church takes precedence over the Holy Spirit in sanctifying the believer. Look folks, again it is time to say it. If you are in a 9Marx or Acts 29 or NeoCalvinist church…RUN FOR YOUR LIFE! Or soon, if you don’t tow the line, YOU WILL BE DISCIPLINED. And it might just be over a simple thing as disagreeing with your husband, and someone overhearing it in the church halls.

  538. Gram3 wrote:

    @ Gram3:
    Grudem is the editor of the ESV, and the ESV is promoted as an “essentially literal” translation. That is false advertising in this instance. Grudem knows perfectly well that the verse makes good sense without his editorial addition, but what Paul actually wrote does not fit Grudem’s narrative, so the Holy Spirit gets edited. Just like the Eternal Son gets demoted in service to Grudem’s agenda. And that is why I say that these men are not conservatives when it comes to the text.

    Can you give me the specific verses where Grudem does this editing of the Holy Spirit? I would like to study this further.

  539. js wrote:

    But that’s just it. If you tar everyone outside the YRR as Female Subordinationists and then link them with ESS and then call ESS a rank heresy pretty soon you have a pretty small Christianity. I know some of TWW readers would think Piper is a false teacher but probably not Wright.

    I did not draw those connections. What I said is that the YRR have made Female Subordinationism a distinctive and they, themselves, have said it is essential to “picturing” and transmitting the Gospel faithfully. Female Subordinationism is a *distinctive* of YRR, but it is not *exclusive* to YRR. Female Subordinationism is the norm across human cultures across time. It is the essence of fallenness, not of the New Creation.

    ESS, as far as I know, is not exclusive to the YRR. George Knight III is not YRR, but the YRR have certainly taken his idea and built their System upon it.

    I am not the one carving Christianity into male and female parts. I’m not the one disfellowshipping people for questioning the doctrine. I’m not the one shutting down the conversation, nor am I the one who is ignoring or altering the text.

    Do you think what Grudem has done to the ESV in 1 Corinthians 11:10 is acceptable?

  540. js wrote:

    Ephesians 5, Colossians 3, 1 Peter 3

    Ephesians, Colossians, and the Petrine books were letters written to churches/Christians in Asia Minor, where heresy, prostitution, and worship of idols ran rampant. In most cases, females were considered to be the property of either their fathers or their husbands. In most cases, marriages were not based on mutual love, but on political or financial gain for the men. Many marriages were arranged by the fathers and the suitors.

  541. js wrote:

    Participles can often have an imperatival force. Even the NRSV (hardly a comp translation) renders both v. 21 and v. 22 with imperatives.

    Where in the preceding verses of Ephesians do you find an imperative other than be filled with the Spirit? The participles are descriptive and illustrate what being filled with the Spirit looks like.

  542. js wrote:

    I’ll change it to “God-given calling.” Better?

    Where has God assigned the vocations of Submitter and Leader according to gender?

  543. Gram3 wrote:

    And we have a sense of humor.

    I hear it also relieves general crankiness, puffiness of the ego, and disorders of the skin, such as thinness.

  544. js wrote:

    Their God-given callings in marriage of submission and servant-leadership are different but do not inherently lead to denial of personhood.

    Again, you are asserting what you have not demonstrated from the text itself. If one person has less personal agency–is irrevocably subject to another person–that subject person has their personhood diminished. Putting a pretty label on it doesn’t change the reality.

  545. This is a crucial discussion, and kudos to js for participating.

    TVC shares the same gender hierarchy views as js. They wanted Karen to stay with Jordan Root. She was disciplined for making decisions without the church’s input. There is some bad fruit emanating from this thinking.

  546. js wrote:

    submission and service are actually at the heart of Christian ethics.

    Yes, indeed. For *all* Christians, not just for some. Regardless of male or female, we are called to imitate Christ, not to play Roles.

  547. Gram3 wrote:

    js wrote:

    Participles can often have an imperatival force. Even the NRSV (hardly a comp translation) renders both v. 21 and v. 22 with imperatives.

    Where in the preceding verses of Ephesians do you find an imperative other than be filled with the Spirit? The participles are descriptive and illustrate what being filled with the Spirit looks like.

    I haven’t looked at the preceding verses yet but I trust the late Bruce Metzger as a Greek scholar (and lead of the NRSV) more than I would trust myself.

  548. BeenThereDoneThat wrote:

    This is a crucial discussion, and kudos to js for participating.

    TVC shares the same gender hierarchy views as js. They wanted Karen to stay with Jordan Root. She was disciplined for making decisions without the church’s input. There is some bad fruit emanating from this thinking.

    I doubt we are exactly the same. I try not to over apply what I see in the text to give specific point by point prescriptions for everything. The Bible gives us more patterns than prescriptions. You are not going to see me on here giving you a list of 50 places women can and can’t serve in the church, for example. I believe it is up to each believer and congregation under the leadership of the Holy Spirit to walk these principles out. We may share some of the same principles but the application would look very different.